
IN RE THAT AGGRESSIVE 
SLAVOCRACY 



BY 
CHAUNCEY SAMUEL BOUCHER, Ph D 

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 

AUSTIN 

1921 




Reprinted from the Mississippi 
Valley Historical Review 
Vol. VIII, Nos. 1-2, 1921 



£4-4% 

H375" 



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IN RE THAT AGGRESSIVE SLAVOCRACY 1 

From most of the historical works covering the ante-bellum 
period one gains the impression that the dominant factor, 
controlling the course of events, is found in a powerful, united, 
well-organized, aggressive slavocracy. Some of the more prom- 
inent details of the picture are as follows: Shortly after the 
war of 1812 this aggressive slave power began to sense its 
strength and future possibilities. As its designs were unfolded 
and became generally known, the first successful effort to check 
its growing power came in 1820 with the Missouri compromise. 
This proved but a temporary setback, however, for the south 
then looked toward Texas, with the result that in 1836 Texas 
was asking for admission as a slave state. In the meantime, the 
south had forced upon the union an acceptance of its tariff 
views in 1833. Though the antislavery forces now began to 
mobilize for a general crusade against the aggressions of the 
slaveholders and did succeed in delaying Texan annexation for 
a decade, that aggressive southern group ultimately had its 
way and added another slave state. Not content with the annex- 
ation of this Texan domain, from which five slave states might 
ultimately be made, the south pushed the country into the war 
with Mexico to gain still more territory for the expansion of 
its institution and more votes in congress to insure its domi- 
nation. At the same time this selfish section, willing to pro- 
mote only its own interests, managed affairs so that our just 
claim to much of the Oregon territory was forfeited, simply 
because if it had been pressed the result would have been the 
addition of more free states. "When the Wilmot proviso was 
offered as a stop to the program of southern aggression, the 
south succeeded in defeating it and secured the lion's share 
in the compromise settlement of 1850. The next and most 
unpardonable work of this aggressive slavocracy was the Kan- 

1 This paper was given in part as the presidential address at the fourteenth 
annual meeting of the Mississippi valley historical association at Madison, Wis- 
consin, on April 14, 1921. 



14 Chauncey 8. Boucher m.v. h. k. 

sas-Nebraska bill of 1854, with the repeal of the compromise of 
1820, which had been planned for a decade. This was soon 
followed by the Dred Scott decision, designed to make slavery 
in all the territories absolutely secure. The next step was to 
be, through another such decision, a forced legalization of slav- 
ery in all of the then free states. 

Through it all the oligarchy of slaveholders in the south had 
become drunk with power and their hopes and ambitions knew 
no bounds. Controlling the situation as the planters did in 
the south, including the border states, and united on all serious 
questions of policy where the " peculiar institution" was in- 
volved, in spite of the appearance of party division on smaller 
matters, they would be able to control the policy of the country ; 
for a compact minority, with the advantages of great wealth 
and leisure to devote to public affairs, could govern in any 
country. "With the successes enumerated above to their credit, 
and their control of the presidency, which was almost continuous 
beginning with 1844, and control of the house, the senate, and 
the supreme court either established or within reach, they de- 
veloped imperialistic plans to bring Cuba, Mexico, and Central 
America under their system of control. The resources and 
opportunities of the section were to be fully developed through 
a series of southern commercial conventions which would launch 
successful propaganda for the conservation of cotton soils, the 
perfecting of the efficiency of labor units, the promotion of 
manufacturing establishments in the south, the building of a 
railroad to the Pacific along a southern route, the reopening 
of the African slave trade to furnish the additional labor needed, 
and the establishment of steamship lines from southern ports 
to Europe. Thus the south would control the nation, and through 
King Cotton it could control the destinies of the rest of the 
world; and the corner stone of its ideal scheme of civilization 
was to be slavery. It would have a perfect society in which 
every man should have a place — the best place for which he 
was fitted — and should keep it. 2 

This is the picture, not thus drawn in its entirety in any 

2 Numerous references could be given to general histories, biographies, and 
special works to show how generally accepted is this view. The purpose of 
this paper is not to contradict any one author, however, but to examine the sound- 
ness of view of a whole group. 



Bt 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 15 

one account, but large sections of it appear in most accounts. It 
is the purpose of this monograph to examine the picture in 
detail and to see whether it is true to facts. Was the south 
united throughout the ante-bellum period in its position on big 
questions of policy and action? Was it really united on any 
single big issue? Was it normally aggressive, or was it on the 
defensive ? 

Those historians who see in the ante-bellum south only an 
aggressive slavocracy admit that a primary requisite for that 
section to have been on the aggressive would seem to have 
been unity of purpose and action. The well-known fact that 
there were two thriving political parties in the south in the 
decade 1840-1850, when the south is supposed to have got well 
started on its aggressive program, is dismissed with the simple 
statement that though each party might twit the other on occa- 
sion with being disloyal to slavery, in any great crisis they 
were almost certain to unite. True, this is the logic which is 
demanded by the acceptance of the doctrine of an aggressive 
slavocracy. But, is it true to facts? 

One does not read very far in newspaper files or correspond- 
ence collections of the ante-bellum period in the south before one 
encounters frequent complaints and laments, registered in all 
seriousness, that such a situation — unity of purpose and action 
politically — did not exist. Party divisions were not mere sur- 
face affairs ; party ties did not hang loosely, and party allegiance 
was not renounced lightly. Indeed, the true state of affairs 
seems to have been that party divisions cut deeply through the 
body politic; party ties were strong, and party allegiance was 
renounced only under most abnormal and forceful circumstan- 
ces. Personal political feuds between individuals and groups 
were as bitter and persistent as in any other section of the 
union. If he who is obsessed with the idea of a united and 
aggressive slavocracy reads newspaper and correspondence ma- 
terial, the frequency with which such complaints as the follow- 
ing are repeated should make him pause : the south is not united ; 
apparently it cannot be united — certainly not for defense in 
advance of an anticipated attack, but perhaps it may be united 
after an " overt act" has been committed; (such an "overt act," 
however, capable of uniting the south, did not come prior to 
I860;) there are few southern statesmen with big views and 



16 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

disinterested motives ; there are too many selfish, spoils-seeking 
politicians, interested only in serving personal ends; party 
ties are stronger than sectional ties ; spoilsmen are ever ready 
to knife each other or honest men interested in principles ; the 
majority of the party rank and file are strongly inclined to 
temporize with principles and to postpone ultimately inevitable 
issues; since the abolitionists are so insistent and such persist- 
ent fighters, and since the south is not united and not aggressive, 
the politicians see that they have more to gain and less to 
lose by giving in to the former at the expense of the latter; 
the northern enemies of the south have many shrewd states- 
men enlisted in their ranks who will not commit the blunder of 
taking such an advanced position as will result in uniting the 
south, but who by slow and careful advances are succeeding 
in deluding the south and keeping it distracted until the time 
will be ripe for the final step of complete abolition, with as- 
surance of success; the safety of the south depends less upon 
the patriotism (to the south) of its politicians, than upon the 
boldness of its opponents. 

In the following pages it will be demonstrated frequently 
that southern unity did not exist. Even in congress the south 
did not present a united front which might have enabled it 
to make demands with assurance of having them met ; however, 
there was a nearer approach to unity of purpose and action 
among southern men in congress than among their constituents 
at home, the section over. It was difficult enough to get the 
people of a single state to agree upon and take a definite stand, 
as is witnessed by the history of South Carolina from 1828 to 
1861; and as for getting several states to agree even upon an 
interpretation of the situation at any given time, to say nothing 
of concerted action, it seemed to be utterly hopeless, for it 
seemed almost hopeless in the case of two states, neighbors with 
apparently identical interests, South Carolina and Georgia. 

On several occasions in the period from 1840 to 1860 men 
wrote in private correspondence that the only real hope they 
had of ever getting the south to take a united and effective stand 
in defense of its rights lay in South Carolina, which seemed to 
be the only state where there was enough of unity, steadfast- 
ness to principle, and boldness to cause the state to take a 



vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 17 

stand; this would likely result in an attempt to coerce South 
Carolina which could not be concealed from the people of the 
other southern states, who would then, and then only, be brought 
to real, effective, united action for defense of the section. On 
the other hand, it was just as frequently predicted that any 
movement started by the "palmetto state" was sure to fail 
for want of support from the other southern states, so great 
was their distrust, jealousy, and hatred of the leadership of 
that state. 

The ante-bellum period was characterized, in South Caro- 
lina and in the south generally, by waves of excitement. An 
examination of any one of these will reveal the same general 
story: much talk about necessity of action — of united action; 
but it never materializes. Always there are bitter party feuds, 
distrust of leaders, complaint of lack of proper leadership, et 
cetera, ad infinitum. 

The story of the whig party in the south is a forceful proof 
of the lack of unity. When the "peculiar institution" was as- 
sailed from the north, of course the state-rights whigs came 
to its defense. As it was early seen that the northern whigs 
tended to be more actively hostile to slavery than were the 
northern democrats, the southern whigs were reminded of the 
fact and taunted with being traitors to their own interests. 
Quite naturally, perhaps, then, as long as the alliance between 
the southern and the northern wings of the party was continued, 
the southern whigs were more moderate in their defense of 
slavery than were the southern democrats. Throughout the 
struggle in congress over the gag resolutions the compact front 
of the south was broken again and again quite perceptibly by whig 
votes. The same was true of the votes in the house on the elec- 
tion of a speaker and in the senate on the ratification of appoint- 
ments made by the president, when objection was raised that 
the man under consideration was an antislavery man. Indeed, 
through the eighteen-forties many southern whigs denounced 
the democrats for eternally dragging forth the slavery question 
to cover up the real issue, whatever it might be, and to stir up 
agitation. When the national whig party became irreparably 
split over the slavery question, it did not mean that from that 
time on there was a united south with a single purpose and a 



18 Chauncey S. Boucher 



m. v. H. R. 



single policy. Though southern whigs agreed to disagree with 
their northern party brethren they could not agree among them- 
selves nor with the southern democrats on a position to be held 
against the common foe; and, though the national democratic 
party continued its existence down to 1860, there was marked 
disagreement in the southern ranks of that party as to policy. 

Throughout the ante-bellum period there were men in the north 
who were not ready to support all the aggressive measures di- 
rected against the south; these men were styled "northern men 
with southern principles," and were referred to more contemp- 
tuously as "doughfaces." There seem to have been quite as 
many men in the south who were inclined to be conservative, 
less radical in demands, and willing to make concessions ; these 
men were called "southern traitors" in some quarters. But 
the striking difference between the sections in this respect was 
that, while in the north there was pretty general agreement in 
classifying men as "doughfaces," in the south there was a lack 
of agreement as to who were the "traitors;" a man might be 
to one group in the south a wise and honest statesman, while 
at the same time to another group he might be a political charla- 
tan and a traitor. Many men who were called traitors by var- 
ious compatriots in the south might be named. There was con- 
siderable interest in, and comment upon, the Calhoun-Benton 
feud. Some referred to Benton as "Tommy the traitor" and 
developed their meaning at length, but admitted that if Benton 
could "force on" his opponents "the livery of Calhoun and 
disunion" he could "make them odious enough to scare children 
with." When, in all seriousness, one group of correspondents 
referred to certain political leaders as traitors to the south and 
to other leaders as wise and honest statesmen; when another 
group of correspondents referred to the same leaders with 
terms of classification just reversed; and when still others 
classed both groups of leaders as traitors, the historian must 
conclude that the section was thoroughly disorganized and that 
it possessed no real unity of purpose or action. 

It was the irony of fate that the southern statesman who 
saw, perhaps more clearly than any other, the necessity of 
southern unity for defense through the maintenance of the 
"true Republican principles," and who strove earnestly to 



vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 19 

promote such unity of action in support of basic principles, 
was the very one who perhaps caused more division and bitter- 
ness of strife within the section than any other man. No man 
ever had followers more devoted and enemies more bitter among 
the "people at home" than John C. Calhoun. 

Instead of a united, aggressive slavocracy, one finds evidence 
at almost every turn that the true picture is quite the reverse, 
and that keen students of public affairs realized full well that 
cross-purposes and disorganization prevailed. Again and again, 
throughout the period from 1835 to 1860, complaint was regis- 
tered that, vainly putting its trust in national parties, without 
unanimity of opinion either as to the dangers that menaced or 
the remedies to be applied, with no distinct issue, no certain aim, 
no wise plan of statesmanship, no well-defined ideas of what 
it might have to fear, to hope, or to do, the south was dragged 
along, ingloriously enough, by the fatal delusions of national 
partyism, a source of profit to its southern betrayers and a 
spoil and a mockery to its northern enemies. Though the opin- 
ion was frequently offered that if united the south would be 
invincible, at least in the protection of its rights, it was almost 
as frequently admitted that it seemed impossible to get the 
section to unite even for self-defense, let alone for a positive 
or an aggressive program, within the union. Hence it was that 
toward the end of the period some sincere believers in the pres- 
ervation of the "Constitutional Union" as the best policy for 
both sections began to hope for secession by a single state as 
the only development which could bring about southern unity; 
and many of these men admitted at the same time that they 
feared that such unity would last but a short time beyond the 
formation of a southern confederacy, and that disorganization 
and disintegration would soon follow. 

When the historian finds that some southerners boasted of 
how they might control the nation if they could but secure unity 
among southern statesmen and politicians, and that individuals 
or groups urged this item or that one for a southern program 
and boasted of the wonders it would work, is the historian to 
interpret them literally? In most of such instances were they 
not in the mood of a small boy going down a dark alley, whistling 
as loud as he can to keep up his courage? Just as the boy's 



20 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R 

whistling is so forced and strained that he hits many false notes, 
so the boasting of southerners gives one the impression that it 
was forced, unnatural, not sincere, and hence false notes were 
struck. 

When the south struggled for power in national councils, was 
it for political strength to be used aggressively? Did the south 
have a positive program to be put through in its own interest 
to the exclusion of, or the positive injury of, the other sections? 
Did not the south want political strength mainly or simply to 
block and stop the aggressions of its opponents? Did it ask 
anything more than to be let alone and not to be made to bear 
the burden of legislation injurious to itself alone ? 3 

The charge of aggression was made against the south for 
the first time seriously and rather generally in the middle eight- 
een-thirties, when projects for Texan independence from Mex- 
ico and annexation to the United States were launched; this 
time was also marked by the launching of the aggressive anti- 
slavery crusade in the north. During the next decade the 
charge was made with ever-increasing frequency and reached 
the height of its strength and popularity at the time of the 

8 To give all the source citations in correspondence collections and newspaper 
files upon which these observations are based would require unwarranted space. 
Eeference can be made simply in a general way to the Hammond papers, the Cal- 
houn papers, The correspondence of Eobert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and 
Howell Cobb, edited by Ulrich B. Phillips (American historical association, Annual 
report, 1911, volume 2 — Washington, 1913), Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 
edited by J. Franklin Jameson (American historical association, Annual report, 1899, 
volume 2 — Washington, 1900), and files of southern newspapers of the ante-bellum 
period, now in the possession of the University of Texas, the Alabama state 
department of archives and history, the Charleston library society, South Carolina 
university, and the library of congress. Many secondary works, such as Arthur 
C. Cole, The whig party in the south (Prize essays of the American historical 
association, 1912 — Washington, 1913), are valuable. Letters especially valuable 
for a picture of the south at different times are the following: Calhoun from 
J. W. A. Pettit, June 18, 1847, from Wilson Lumpkin, August 27, 1847, August 
25, 1848, from H. W. Connor, October 6, 1847, from A. Bowie, January 19, 1848, 
and from Louis T. Wigfall, January 4, 1849, in the Calhoun papers; Stephens to 
James Thomas, February 13, 1850, to J. Henly Smith, January 22, September 15, 16, 
1860, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 184, 457, 496, 497. Another 
volume of Calhoun correspondence is now being edited by R. P. Brooks and C. S. 
Boucher, for publication by the Manuscripts commission of the American historical 
association, as u ne volume of the Reports; it will contain about four hundred letters 
written to Calhoun from all parts of the country in the eighteen-forties. Hereafter, 
in this monograph, this collection of correspondence, as yet unpublished, will be 
referred to as the "Calhoun papers." 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 Th a t Aggressive Slavocracy 21 

Mexican war. It held sway in the north until 1861, has per- 
sisted from that day to this, and is repeated in books published 
within the past year, 1920. 

The settlement of Texas by emigrants from the south was 
as natural a development as any phase of the westward move- 
ment. At a time when migration westward — the pushing 
into new lands and the development of them — was one of the 
most important and generally characteristic movements in all 
parts of the United States, why was it not to be expected that 
the south would share in this common impulse? and, when it 
developed that the south did share the impulse and acted on it, 
why was this worthy of being labeled a criminal conspiracy? 

In view of the facts that the culture of cotton by the planta- 
tion system required larger units of land and exhausted the 
land relatively more rapidly than the northern type of agri- 
culture with varied crops and smaller units, it was natural that 
the southern frontier should lead, as it did into Missouri and 
Texas. Furthermore, at a time when the westward migration 
in the United States was steadily increasing and when the west- 
ern prairies were designated as the Indian country, or were 
closed to the south by the compromise of 1820, it would seem 
natural that the stream of advance should have been diverted to 
the southwest. Those who have made a critical study of the colo- 
nization of Texas, however, have found that the settlement of 
that state, in the early days before its independence, was not 
promoted by slavery, to any appreciable extent. A few slave- 
holders were attracted by the opportunity to secure cheap 
lands, but the early emigration to Texas was chiefly of " land- 
hungry" men of small means, small farmers, back-country men 
of the Jackson-democrat type, and very few were owners of 
more than a very few slaves, while the majority were not 
slaveholders at all. Slaves were brought into Texas in greater 
numbers after independence and after annexation, but the ma- 
jority of immigrants were still nonslaveholders, and the slaves 
constituted only twenty-seven per cent of the total population 
of Texas in 1850 and only thirty per cent in 1860. There 
seems to be little, if any, evidence to show that the settlement of 
Texas was due even in small part to the political ambitions of 
the south to increase the slaveholders' strength in congress. 
When Texas was ripe for annexation, the accomplishment of 



22 Cliauncey 8. Boucher M - v - H - E - 

this desideratum was delayed a decade by the slavery compli- 
cation. If there had not been a single slave within the limits 
of the United States, the independence of Texas and its sub- 
sequent incorporation into the union would likely have come 
about, as a result of the natural course of the westward move- 
ment, but with this possible difference : annexation might have 
come ten years earlier than it did. Slavery, instead of stimulat- 
ing the annexation, actually delayed it. 4 

During the period of delay, caused by the opponents of slavery, 
the south learned that these opponents were planning attacks 
which would be impeded by an accretion of strength to those 
about to be assailed; and, by the same token, which prompted 
a determination on the part of antislavery men to prevent this 
accretion of strength, southerners saw that it was their cue to 
be interested in it. Then it was, in the period when Texas was 
kept waiting for admission, that great numbers in the south 
for the first time demanded annexation as necessary for their 
safety in the national councils. True, a few, such as Robert 
J. Walker of Mississippi, as early as 1835 urged annexation 
because it might give the south six additional slaveholding, 
antitariff states, securing to the south a checking power in 
the senate against hostile legislation. But it was not until later, 
after Texas had been held off for some time, that great numbers 
in the south came to demand annexation for this reason; not 
until the aggressions of the abolitionists forced them to this 
as a defensive position. And even this same Robert J. Walker 
was a consistent expansionist, whether slavery was involved or 
not, even more than he was a guardian of the institution. 5 

Further, on the eve of the annexation of Texas the south was 
interested in adding that state to the union because of the inter- 

* George P. Garrison, Westward extension, 1841-1850 {The American nation: a 
history, volume 17— New York, 1906), 90; James E. Winston, "Texas annexation 
sentiment in Mississippi, 1835-1844," in the Southwestern historical quarterly, 
23:1-19; Calhoun from Thomas Scott, April 4, 1844, from William Hale, May 18, 
1844, from Wilson Shannon, May 25, 1844, from Sam B, Thruston, December 2, 
1844, from William C. Anderson and others, November 6, 1845, Calhoun papers. 
The writer is indebted for valuable suggestions and information on the history of 
Texas to his colleagues, Mr. E. C. Barker, who has done considerable work on the 
Anglo-American colonization of Texas, and Mr. C. W. Ramsdell. 

s Winston, ' ' Texas annexation sentiment in Mississippi, ' ' in the Southwestern 
historical quarterly, 23:2; E. M. T. Hunter to Calhoun, October 10, 1843, Calhoun 
papers. 



vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 23 

national dangers arising from English designs in Texas — dan- 
gers', both political and economic, to the whole union — quite as 
much as it was interested in this possible increase in political 
strength for the defense of slavery in the union, or in the 
avoidance of the danger of having as a neighbor a state to be abo- 
litionized under English influence. Many of the letters in south- 
ern correspondence of 1844 and 1845 show that the writers, 
southerners, were thinking mainly about the international as- 
pect of the Texas annexation question ; thinking of the peace and 
prosperity of the nation as a whole; fearing a Texan alliance 
with Great Britain that would lead to diplomatic troubles, and 
most likely to war; fearing the bad commercial effects on the 
nation as a whole of independent Texas allied commercially 
with other nations and waging commercial warfare upon the 
United States. The great majority of these letters contain no 
mention of more votes in congress for slavery; some of them 
show anxiety over the effect of emancipation in Texas upon 
the slave states, and a desire to block this further aggressive 
move by Great Britain against a domestic institution in the 
United States. Indeed, some southerners thought the annexa- 
tion of Texas of so grave importance to the United States as a 
whole, for international and commercial reasons, that they would 
have been much more outspoken for it, had it not been for the 
fact that the slavery embarrassment caused them to approach 
the subject with the greatest caution. 6 

But, once the slavery issue had been clearly drawn in con- 
nection with Texas, many southerners realized that to permit 
it to be rejected because it would enter as a slave state would 
be for the south to surrender all rights. After Texas had been 
kept out for some eight years, the south seems to have become 
fully awakened to the importance of Texas in connection with 

e Calhoun from E. M. T. Hunter, October 10, 1843, from F. W. Pickens, November 
24, 1843, from Eichard Hawes, March 21, 1844, from Isaac Van Zant and J. 
Pinckney Henderson, April 22, 1844, from James Gadsden, May 3, 1844, from E. F. 
Simpson, May 24, 1844, from William M. Gwin, August 20, 1844, from Duff 
Green, December 13, 20, 1844, from Eustis Prescott, January 4, 1845, from J. S. 
Mayfield, February 19, 1845, from J. Hamilton, February 28, 1845, from A. J. 
Donelson, March 24, 1845, Calhoun papers; George D. Phillips to Cobb, February 
21, 25, 1845, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 65, 66; Calhoun 
to Charles J. Ingersoll, July 2, 1844, Calhoun from Ambrose D. Mann, October 31, 
1844, from William E. King, January 29, 1845, from John Tyler, June 5, 1848, in 
Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 599, 982, 1022, 1172. 



24 Chcmncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R 

slavery. Then, with the views of Great Britain and the north- 
ern states not only disclosed but openly avowed, the annexation 
of Texas became to some southerners the most vital issue since 
the American revolution. "On it," wrote one of these, ''hinges 
the very existence of our Southern Institutions, and if we of the 
south now prove recreant, we . . . must [be] content to be 
Hewers of wood and Drawers of water for our Northern Breth- 
ren. ' ' 7 

South Carolina, the state usually accredited with being in the 
van when an aggressive program to serve southern interests 
was on foot, did not become generally interested in Texas until 
1843 ; and even then that state and its great statesman, Calhoun, 
were quite as much interested in the tariff and in general gov- 
ernmental reform as in Texas. Indeed, they became insistent 
upon the annexation only when they saw that defeat of that 
project would be regarded as a great victory for the abolition- 
ists and would serve to encourage them in further aggressions. 
Another phase which interested South Carolinians quite as 
much as any other was the danger that Texas would fall into 
the hands of a commercial rival whose hold would involve inter- 
national trouble in view of the Monroe doctrine. 8 

One of the best proofs that the south was not united in a 
deep-laid slavery-extension plot to add another slave state is 
found in a suggestion, made late in 1843, that the Texas ques- 

7 Calhoun from E. J. Black, March 4, 1844, from Richard Hawes, March 21, 1844, 
from J. H. Howard, May 2, 1844, from James Gadsden, May 3, 1844, from L. A. 
Hoe, May 11, 1844, from J. H. Hammond, June 7, 1844, from E. F. Simpson, 
August 4, 1844, from W. M. Corry, February 14, 1845, Calhoun papers; Wilson 
Lumpkin to Calhoun, March 23, 1844, Calhoun to George W. Houk, October 14, 
1844, in Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 624, 942; Cobb from Thomas Ritchie, 
May 6, 1844, from J. W. Burney, January 31, 1845, from Junius Hillyer, Feb- 
ruary 15, 1845, Toombs to Stephens, February 16, 1845, in Correspondence of 
Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 56, 62, 63. 

sChauncey S. Boucher, "The annexation of Texas and the Bluff ton movement 
in South Carolina," in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 6:3-33. 
F. W. Pickens wrote to Calhoun on November 24, 1843: "I fully agree as to 
the importance of the Texas question in all its bearings. I think we are bound 
to take the highest and most decided grounds. I think the possession of Texas 
as a British colony would be the just cause of war, and if the non-slaveholding 
states oppose its admission upon the ground of its strengthening the slaveholding 
interests, etc., we will be bound in self respect and self-preservation to join Texas 
with or without the Union. It is a grave and a momentous question in all its 
bearings, and I am ready to pledge all that I am and all that I hope to be on its 
issues. ' ' Calhoun papers. 



Vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 25 

tion might be used to unite the south politically in an endeavor 
to defeat both Clay and Van Buren and prevent the betrayal 
expected in tariff legislation. Again and again letters written 
in the early part of 1844 show that the south was not united 
on any stand and that the men who saw the international and 
sectional dangers involved in the defeat of annexation were 
tiying to devise some means to arouse southerners to present 
a united front for Texas. In South Carolina embarrassment 
was caused by the Bluffton movement led by Robert B. Ehett 
for state action — nullification or secession — against the tariff, 
for this movement created distraction just when unity was 
needed. 9 

Letters written to Calhoun during 1842, 1843, and 1844 show 
that the writers were interested primarily in keeping the demo- 
cratic party, and thus the administration of the government, 
true to certain principles — basic principles of administration, 
illustrated specifically in the tariff, currency, banking, public 
lands, et cetera, and only secondarily in slavery. There are no 
signs of a "plot" of an "aggressive slavocracy." Indeed, there 
are dozens of letters with no mention of slavery. Accordingly, 
Texas was not the biggest issue in the election of 1844, from the 
standpoint of many a southerner. It was the basic change of 
principles for national administration, the triumph of true 
democracy — "the true Republican principles," as they were 
called — that was welcomed so much with the victory of Polk. 10 

» Virgil Maxcy wrote on December 14, 1843 : ' ' Some of your friends at Wash- 
ington I fear would hesitate at taking issue with Mr. V. B. and Mr. Clay on what 
they consider your extreme notions on the subject of Tariff alone, and for that 
reason to prevent the possibility of a schism or any faltering in the ranks it seemed 
to me expedient to strengthen your position and your hold on them by the addition 
of the Texas question. This course would I think strengthen you throughout the 
South, where I should hope there would be no division on the Texas question, tho' 
on the subject of a protective tariff, there are still some, who feel a toleration 
for discrimination, not only for revenue, but for the purpose of incidental protection 
or encouragement of manufactures." Calhoun papers. See also Boucher, "The 
annexation of Texas and the Bluffton movement in South Carolina,'" in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley Historical Review, 6:9; Calhoun from K. M. T. Hunter, October 
10, 1843, from J. H. Howard, May 2, 1844, from James Gadsden, May 3, 1844, 
from Eustis Prescott, May 11, 1844, from J. H. Campbell, May 14, 1844, from F. H. 
Elmore, July 30, 1844, from H. Hailey, July 30, 1844, from F. W. Pickens, August 
10, 1844, in the Calhoun papers; Virgil Maxcy to Calhoun, December 3, 1843, in 
Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 896. 

io Calhoun from J. H. Hammond, February 3, 1844, from B. B. Rhett, February 
21, 1844, from George McDuffie, March 10, 1844, from F. W. Pickens, August 10, 



26 Chauncey 8. Boucher m.v.h.e. 

After Calhoun became secretary of state southerners urged 
him to take "the highest grounds" on the Oregon question quite 
as often as they urged a similar course regarding Texas. Many 
of these correspondents were able to view the two questions 
more disinterestedly, from the standpoint of national welfare, 
than many of their brethren in the north. They did not worry 
about the future admission of new free states formed from the 
Oregon territory, and indeed were not sure that if Texas were 
divided the result would not be three free states and two slave 
states formed from its territory. 11 Many men agreed with How- 
ell Cobb of Georgia, who was an ardent " flf ty-f our-f orty " man 
and was quite disgusted that we surrendered so much of the 
Oregon territory and yet showed such haste to bait Mexico. 12 
After Polk, in his message of December 2, 1845, announced 
that "the proposition of compromise which had been made 
[by the United States] and rejected [by England] was by my 
direction subsequently withdrawn and our title to the whole 
Oregon territory asserted, and, as is believed, maintained by 
irrefragable facts and arguments," 13 and Calhoun urged cau- 
tion and moderation to avoid a war with England, but at the 
same time was ready to insist on a fair and just settlement, 
southerners generally approved this stand. In Calhoun's cor- 
respondence, however, there is no evidence that the south wanted 
to limit the Oregon territory in order to limit the area of the 
free states. The only references to the slavery question are 

1844, from Francis Wharton, August 21, 1844, from J. Hamilton, September 12, 
October 4, 1844, from W. R, King, November 29, 1844, from J. S. Barbour, Decem- 
ber 18, 1844, from Duff Green, March 26, 1845, Calhoun papers. 

ii Calhoun from F. H. Elmore, March 11, 1844, from F. W. Pickens, April 22, 
1844, September 29, 1845, from G. W. Houk, October 1, 1844, from Thomas G. 
Clemson, November 11, 1845, from H. W. Connor, January 6, 1846, from Elwood 
Fisher, January 10, 1846, from J. H. Howard, January 16, 1846, Calhoun papers; 
George D. Phillips to Cobb, December 30, 1845, Stephens to George W. Crawford, 
February 3, 1846, Cobb to his wife, May 10, 1846, and several letters to and from 
Cobb in the middle of 1846, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 
69, 71, 76. 

12 Charles J. McDonald, former governor of Georgia, wrote to Cobb on July 7, 
1846, from Macon, Georgia: "The whole course of Congress in regard to the 
Oregon question has shown the ignoble spirit that would concede to power what 
it would maintain against a nation less able to defend its usurpations." Ibid., 84. 
See also John H. Lumpkin to Cobb, November 13, 1846, ibid., 86. 

is James D. Richardson, A compilation of the messages and papers of the 
presidents, 1789-1897 (Washington, 1897), 4:395. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 27 

occasional allusions to the northern charge that the south, 
having secured Texas, wanted to let Oregon go by default or 
greatly to reduce that territory, so as to lessen the power of 
the free states. And here the remarkable thing is the slight 
attention paid even to this charge, which was false. So far from 
being on the aggressive, the south was not yet thoroughly 
awake to the necessity of defensive measures. 14 

As annexation was delayed, through the later eighteen-thir- 
ties, it became evident that the south was not and could not 
be united as a champion of annexation. In the early eighteen- 
forties southern whigs were inclined to oppose the annexation 
project, lest it reflect credit upon Tyler and, later, upon Calhoun, 
who became secretary of state. Clay, while on his triumphal 
progress through the south on the eve of the campaign of 
1844, concluded that the southern interest in and insistence 
upon annexation was much less than represented, and he acted 
accordingly in his ' ' Raleigh letter, ' ' which indeed was approved 
by several southern leaders. The points raised by Clay regard- 
ing a compromising of our national character, the danger of a 
war with Mexico, and the danger to the integrity of the union 
had weight with many southerners, and especially with southern 
whig members of congress. 15 While some of these southern 
opponents of annexation, both democrats and whigs, in the 
early days of the campaign of 1844 clearly stated that their 
objection was merely against too hasty action and that they 
hoped for annexation when temporary difficulties had passed, 
others followed the reasoning of Waddy Thompson and opposed 
annexation on the fundamental grounds that, by causing emi- 
gration from the old slave states, it would weaken and would 
ultimately endanger the slave interests in the old states. Some 
whigs objected that the annexation question was endangering 
party success and others were distinct champions of the union 
and opposed annexation because it might lead to a dissolution of 
the union. 16 

14 Many letters written in the first half of 1846, in the Calhoun papers. Albon 
Chase to Cobb, May 20, 1846, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 77. 

!5 Cole, The whig party in the south, 110, 111. 

16 George McDuffie wrote to Calhoun from Washington on January 3, 1843 : 
' ' There is an impression here that the administration are negotiating for the 
annexation of Texas, but nothing certain or definite has transpired. My own 
opinion is that nothing, but a very high state of necessity will justify the measure 



28 Chauncey S. Boucher m.v.h.r. 

The position of Clay and the whig party proved unsatisfactory 
to many voters who had supported the party in 1840, however, 
and the whig vote in the south was materially lessened, due 
both to the Texas question and to the lack of something cor- 
responding to the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" appeal to the 
districts outside the black belt. It was not the south alone, 
however, nor the Texas issue alone, which elected Polk in 1844. 
The vote of the north and the Oregon question were equally 
responsible. The people the country over, north as well as 
south, were wild for expansion, ''manifest destiny," and com- 
paratively little attention was given to problems involved in 
slavery extension. 17 After the popular verdict was known and 
the joint resolution method of annexation was resorted to, 
enough southern whigs gave in to cause the success of the 
measure, but the general body of the southern whig congressmen 
opposed on grounds of constitutionality or because they believed 
it would prove disastrous to the slaveholding interests in some 
if not in all of the old states. 18 

either on the score of justice or policy. It would be ipso facto making war on 
Mexico, if done without her concurrence, and there would be hazard that Great 
Britain would take part with Mexico. ' ' Calhoun papers. See also Boucher, ' ' The 
annexation of Texas and the Bluff ton movement in South Carolina," in the 
Mississippi Valley Historical Beview, 6:3-33, and R. F. Simpson to Calhoun, 
August 24, 1844, in the Calhoun papers. 

17 Cole, The whig party in the south. Calhoun from Thomas Scott, April 4, 1844, 
from William Hale, May 18, 1844, from Wilson Shannon, May 25, 1844, Calhoun 
papers. 

18 Cole, The whig party in the south, 118. Toombs wrote to Stephens on February 
16, 1845: "I see nothing but evil to our party and the country that can come 
out of this question in the future. ... I concur with you in but one of [your 
rejasons for desiring annexation and that is that [it will] give power to the 
slave states. I firmly believe [that in] every other respect it will be an unmixed 
evil to us [?] and not without natural disadvantages as well as [advanta]ges. " 
Toombs wrote to George W. Crawford on February 6, 1846, concerning the Oregon 
question, that he thought it was raised by the democrats simply for political 
purposes, and that Polk was playing it for such. Toombs said that he thought 
that Polk had no idea of making war on anybody other than the whigs, and that 
he hoped to get the whiga in a compromised position on the question before the 
country. "There is another view of this question, purely sectional, which our 
people don't seem to understand. Some of our Southern papers seem to think 
that we are very foolish to risk a war to secure anti-slave power. ' ' He predicted an 
early compromise on the forty-ninth parallel, and "therefore a loss of half the 
country." He did not "care a fig" about any part of the Oregon territory and 
would gladly give all of it to anybody else but the British. ' ' The country is too 
large now, and I don't want a foot of Oregon or an acre of any other country, 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-8 That Aggressive Slavocracy 

Even if the sonth is cleared of the charge of promoting a 
conspiracy to add Texas to the nnion with the idea of making 
some half dozen slave states ont of it for the sake of gam ng 
stongth in the senate, there still remains the charge that the 
Ivocracy was responsible for bringing on the Mexican war 
wZa view to adding enongh more territory to make several 
additional slave states. 

'T wouldn't suit them Southun fellers, 

They're a dreffle graspin' set, 
We must oilers blow the bellers 

Wen they want their irons het ; 
May be it's all right ez preachin', 

But my narves it kind o' grates, 
Wen I see the overreachin' 
0' them nigger-drivin' States. 

They may talk o' Freedom's airy 

Tell they're pupple in the face,— 
It's a grand gret cemetary 

Fer the barthrights of our race ; 
They jest want this Californy 

So's to lug new slave-states in 
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, 

An' to plunder ye like sin. 

Aint it cute to see a Yankee 

Take sech everlastin' pains, 
All to git the Devil's thankee 

Helpin' on 'em weld their chains? 
Wy, it's jest ez clear ez figgers, 

Clear ez one an' one make two, 
Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers 
Want to make wite slaves o' you. 
Thus it was that James Russell Lowell, through his fictitious 
spokesman, Hosea Biglow, represented the sentiments of thou- 
sands in the north during the summer of 1846. From this time 
until 1861 the charge of aggression was hurled with ever-mcreas- 

especially without 'niggers.' These are some of my reasons for my course which 
ZTappIar in print" Such expressions as these are the exception ^ even in 
private ^^correspondence of the period. Correspondence of Toombs, StepKeM, an, 
Cobb, 63, 72. 



30 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

ing vigor against the south by the abolitionists, and the writer 
believes that the persistence of the charge from the end of the 
war to the present in historical works is due to the fact that 
most of these works have been based on sources which,, in the 
final analysis, are really of abolitionist origin. The writer be- 
lieves that the south, instead of being the aggressor, was on 
the defensive throughout almost the entire ante-bellum period; 
and that so far from having the unity which was a primary 
necessity for an offensive campaign, the south could not often, 
nor for long, agree upon even a defensive program, down to the 
very eve of the civil war. Individuals at times took a stand which 
may perhaps best be termed ''aggressively defensive." The 
well-known individualism of the southerner, however, militated 
against united action to the extent that there was no organized, 
unified aggression. 

Although southerners were accused of being treacherously 
overanxious to avoid war with England, if necessary to gain 
territory in the northwest which would add nonslaveholding ter- 
ritory to the union, at the same time that they were anxious 
for war with Mexico to add slaveholding territory to the south- 
west, it can readily be shown that many of them really and 
consistently wanted to avoid war with both. Some southerners, 
indeed, while favoring a firm stand against England on the 
Oregon question, recommended patience with Mexico. The writ- 
er knows of no southerner who openly or secretly advocated 
war with Mexico, before war had actually begun, for the sake 
of adding more slave states. President Polk, who has been 
accused of having been a sectional president, interested pri- 
marily in serving southern interests, seems to have been more 
of a national expansionist per se than the leader in a proslavery 
plot. And the writer has found little if any positive evidence 
that, even after the war was begun, southerners supported it in 
the early period for the sake of conquest of future slave' states. 
Their interest in this phase of the war was aroused only when 
their attention was forced to it by the Wilmot proviso. Such 
stand as they then took was again a defensive one. 19 

19 Calhoun from F. W. Pickens, April 22, 1844, September 29, 1845, from J. H. 
Howard, January 16, 1846, from Charles Anthony, February 17, 1846, from Edward 
J. Black, February 22, 1846, from Alexander Wells, April 9, 1846, from Adam Huts- 
man, April 10, 1846, from Wilson Lumpkin, May 20, 1846, Calhoun papers; Duff 
Green to Calhoun, February 22, 1846, in Correspondence of John C. Callwun, 1073; 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 31 

From 1842 to 1846, judging from newspapers and correspond- 
ence, southerners were thinking* more about the tariff than about 
the territorial phase of the slavery question. They were anxious 
to avoid war with both Great Britain and Mexico, if it could be 
done with honor, because war with any power would interfere 
with their program for tariff and general governmental reform. 20 

When President Polk, on May 11, 1846, declared in his mes- 
sage to congress that Mexico had "passed the boundary of 
the United States," had "invaded our territory and shed Amer- 
ican blood upon American soil," and that war existed, notwith- 
standing "all our efforts to avoid it," existed "by the act 
of Mexico herself," Abraham Lincoln, in his famous "spot res- 
olutions," and John C. Calhoun, in numerous speeches in the 
senate, questioned the president's statements; and while Lin- 
coln implied that war had been courted and begun with unbe- 
coming haste, Calhoun said so definitely. He deplored the war, 
not simply for the manner in which it had been brought on, but 
for its consequences. He remarked to his friends when the war, 
which he believed could and should have been avoided, had ac- 
tually begun, that it was a step from which the country would 
not be able to recover for a long time, if ever; he added that, for 
the first time since entering public life, he was unable to see the 
future. 21 

George McDuffie had been outspokenly opposed to the annexa- 
tion of Texas both on the score of justice and of policy, for it 
"would be ipso facto making war on Mexico, if done without her 
concurrence. 22 Wilson Lumpkin, former governor of Georgia, 

John P. King to Cobb, May 7, 1846, Cobb to his wife, May 10, 1846, Cobb from 
Albon Chase, May 20, 1846, from William H. Hull, May 22, 1846, in Correspondence 
of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 75, 76, 77, 78. 

20 Letters from Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, May 20, November 26, 1846, 
in the Calhoun papers, are typical of scores of letters in this and in other collections. 

2i The works of John C. Calhoun, edited by Eichard K. Cralle (New York, 1857), 
4:355, 363, 371. 

22 George McDuffie to Calhoun, January 3, 1843, Calhoun papers. J. Gregg 
wrote to Calhoun on February 17, 1847: "You have fully confirmed what I have 
thought all along and said frequently in my family though I did not care to 
say much about it out of doors whilse the war was going on, that if Gen'l Taylor 
had not been ordered from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande we would have had 
no war and that Mr. Polk had very injudiciously and imprudently dragged us into 
it as there was no kind of necessity whatever for that ill fated movement. 

' ' The Abolitionists and Northern Members generally objected and predicted 
that the annexation of Texas would lead to a war with Mexico but we all Mr. 



32 Chauncey S.Boucher M.V.H.R. 

wrote on May 20, 1846, in a tone which indicated anything but 
rejoicing. "We are actually at war with Mexico, whether 
Constitutionally so or not," he said. "And I now seriously ap- 
prehend our difficulties with England will not be speedily ad- 
justed. Indeed I think it possible, that our Mexican war may be 
the commencement of troubles, that may shake to the center, 
all the principal governments of the Civilized World. Should 
the great battle of the World come, we shall of course claim 
to ourselves the credit of fighting on the side of liberty and 
Republicanism against Monarchy and Despotism. But I cannot 
see so clearly where we may find ourselves at the close of the 

Polk and all [sic] insisted on it that this would not necessarily follow, nor would 
it had it not been for Mr. Polk's utter lack of judgment and unaccountable indis- 
cretion." Calhoun papers. 

P. S. Buckingham wrote on February 21, 1847, that Calhoun's friends in. 
Virginia were grateful to him for ' ' the high and impregnable moral ground which 
you have taken on the, subject of our Mexican difficulties. The people regard the 
War as Mr. Polk's War." Ibid. Cobb wrote to his wife on May 10, 1846: "It 
is now settled that we are at war with Mexico, and on tomorrow the President 
is to send in to Congress a war message, and immediately legislation will be had 
for the prompt and energetic enforcement of our rights against Mexico. . . . 
I confess I do not feel so warlike myself. I prefer a foeman worthy of my steel. 
The reflection that we are so eager to avenge ourselves upon this poor, imbecile, 
self -distracted province, and at the same time sacrifice rights more 'clear and 
unquestionable ' to appease the threatened anger of her Brittanic Majesty, is to 
me humiliating in the extreme. However I will do my duty in both cases honestly 
and fearlessly, and trust the result to God and to my country." Albon Chase, 
editor of the Southern Banner (Athens, Georgia), wrote to Cobb on May 20, 1846: 
"I am not disposed to argue any point connected with the Oregon or Texas con- 
troversy. I am ranked here as a 54° 40' man, though I do not hesitate to avow 
that I would yield much for the sake of peace. I would take 49° if England 
offered it, to avoid a greater evil than the failure to obtain possession of our 
territory north of that line. And in this, at least, am not inconsistent with myself; 
for if while at peace, Mexico had entered into a negotiation relative to boundary, 
I would not insist upon the whole country east of the Rio Grande for the whole 
length of that river. I would have been gratified at a compromise with her even, 
for the sake of peace. But it is too late now, and it may ere long be too late in 
regard to Oregon." William Hope Hull wrote to Cobb from Athens, Georgia, on 
May 22, 1846, that Clarke county was too much under the influence of whiggery 
to have much enthusiasm in raising troops for Texas. He cautioned that the dem- 
ocratic party should not get itself into an untenable position on the boundary of 
Texas, and that the true boundary was not the Rio del Norte for its whole course. 
"No possible logic can prove that Santa Fe and the other towns on the east side 
of the river on its upper streams, were ever a portion of Texas. The true line 
would leave the river somewhere above Mier, and follow the mountains north, 
leaving a large section between the line and the upper parts of the river 1 ." 
Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 76, 77, 78. 



vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 33 

great struggle." He hinted rather strongly at a belief that 
the president had been duped by the wiles and schemes of a 
war faction which wanted the war to give it " influence, conse- 
quence and popularity." He regretted that the principle had 
apparently been recognized that the president could at any time 
force the country into war, without the aid or consent of 
congress, and that patriotism demanded of congress the supplies 
to carry on that war, without even allowing it time to deliber- 
ate. 23 

When news arrived of the skirmishes on the Rio Grande, 
Calhoun did his best to get the administration to separate the 
question of war from that which related to the rescuing of 
General Taylor and his forces. The means necessary for the 
latter, he said, could, with propriety, be granted at once, but 
time should be taken for due and deliberate consideration of the 
former. Had this been done, he later asserted, all legitimate 
points would soon have been gained from Mexico, without an 
indefinite and expensive war. Many letters of approval came to 
Calhoun when he clearly laid the blame for the war upon the 
lack of judgment and the indiscretion of the administration. 24 

As the war wore on and men and money were consumed in great 
quantities, Calhoun raised the question of the objects in view. 
He had at first to accept the statement of the president that it 
was not for conquest, but merely to establish our boundary line 
and to secure indemnity for claims which antedated the war. But, 
when it looked as though more than enough fighting and conquest 
had come to pass to satisfy such objects, and there seemed to 
be real danger that all Mexico might be conquered, either to be 
held as a province or to be incorporated in the union, Calhoun 
sounded a warning against such a policy as dangerous from 
many standpoints. Again and again he urged his " defensive 
line" policy as best to serve all interests of the United States. 25 

23 Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, May 20, 1846, Calhoun papers. 

24 Calhoun from J. Gregg, February 17, 1847, from P. S. Buckingham, February 
21, 1847, from Wilson Lumpkin, March 11, 1847, from Joseph Pickens, January 6, 
1848, ibid. See also Calhoun, Works (Cralle, ed.), 4:380; John A. Campbell to 
Calhoun, November 20, 1847, Calhoun to Andrew P. Calhoun, May 14, 1846, to 
Thomas O. Clemson, May 28, 1846, in Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 1139, 
690, 691; John P. King to Cobb, May 7, 1846, in Correspondence of Toombs, 
Stephens, and Cobb, 75; the Charleston Mercury, May 19, 1846. 

25 Calhoun, Works (Cralle, ed.), 4:396, 409, 418, 421; Charleston Southern 
Patriot, June 27, 1846; Greenville Republican, February 18, April 16, 1847, Janu- 



34 Chauncey 8. Boucher M - v - H - R 

Calhoun showed that on northern congressmen quite as much 
as on those from the south rested the blame for the precipitate 
(to use no stronger word) recognition of the war. He showed 
also that the responsibility for the determination not to come 
out of the war without taking a good slice of Mexican territory — 
a determination voiced by much of the country at large by the 
end of 1847 — lay with northern congressmen of both parties 
quite as much or more than with southerners. His idea of the 
propriety of seizing and holding such portion of the Mexican 
territory as would be ample to cover "all proper claims" was 
limited to holding it only until the differences between the two 
countries were settled. And, certainly, the United States having 
unnecessarily brought on this war, the prewar claims should 
not be stretched to include indemnity for the cost of the war. 26 

South Carolina newspapers quite generally took the view 
that as soon as the enemy was put beyond the Rio del Norte the 
war should end; accordingly, the lack of moderation displayed 
in the north, where great armies and a march on the city of 
Mexico were talked about, worried South Carolinians. 27 

Southerners complained that the United States government, 
in beginning the war unnecessarily and continuing it far beyond 
any point of necessity, had not gained reputation in the eyes 
of the world for justice, moderation, or wisdom. 28 Thomas G. 
Clemson, a South Carolinian, wrote from Brussels in June, 
1846, that he regretted that the Mexican war had given the 
monarchies of Europe another opportunity to display their 
lack of sympathy with the United States and its institutions 
and to point with scorn to the " efficiency" of republican, forms 
of government. "If," he said, "we could now bring about an 
honorable peace [after Taylor's success] and retire from the 

ary 21, 1848; Charleston Mercury, January 10, 11, 1848; Columbia Telegraph, 
February 4, 1848. 

26 Calhoun, Works (Cralle, ed.), 4:381. 

27 Charleston Mercury, May 18, 25, 1846 ; Charleston Courier, May 15, 1846 ; 
Charleston Evening News, May 15, 1846; Charleston Southern Patriot, June 5, 1846. 

28 "Much as I regard military glory," said Calhoun, "much as I rejoice to 
witness the display of that indomitable energy and courage which surmounts all 
difficulties — I would be sorry indeed that our government should lose any portion 
of that high character for justice, moderation, and discretion, which distinguished 
it in the early stages of our history." Works (Cralle, ed.), 4: 410. 



vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 35 

Mexican territory without the usual excesses that invariably fol- 
low successful armies, it would be a great point gained. ,,29 

Many a southerner's comments on the war were confined to the 
national and international aspects of it, with slight reference, 
if any, to the sectional phase. 30 James Chestney, writing from 
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on November 23, 1846, condemned the 
Mexican war because it would bankrupt the treasury, endanger 
the cause of free trade, and create discontent in every section 
of the union, while it offered no compensating gain. 31 To many 
the great dangers of the war, other than the possible conquest 
of and attempt to hold all Mexico, seemed to be the great increase 
of the national debt, the extension of the patronage of the 
executive, the prospect of abandonment of a metallic currency 
for the paper system, and the abandonment of the practical 
benefits of free trade because of the necessity for increasing 
the duties to meet the heavy interest burden of the debt. These 
occupied the attention of many far more than the prospect of 
adding new slave states. 32 

2» Thomas G. Clemson to Calhoun, June 27, 1846, Calhoun papers. A. J. Donelson, 
a Tennesseean by birth, wrote from Berlin on January 8, 1848, in a similar vein. 

so Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, May 20, 1846, Calhoun papers. Thomas G. 
Clemson, writing to Calhoun on March 28, 1847, commented on the war from 
international and national standpoints, and added: "One thing I regret, that la 
mixing of the slavery question. It appears to have been unavoidable and will 
perhaps unite the South, and thus enable them to hold on to the advantages they 
have recently gained." Ibid. 

3i Calhoun papers. Chestney added : ' ' However guilty the government of Mexico 
may be, the wretched inhabitants of that part of the world are innocent, and 
the terrible calamities and distress that have been heaped upon the people of 
Monterey and its vicinity have produced no compensating or corresponding benefit 
either to the American government, the army, or the American people. I think I 
speak the language of truth and soberness, as well as of humanity, in regard to 
the matter, and I am satisfied the best part of the people of the South Western 
States are disposed to see the affair terminate. ... I trouble myself very 
little with politics, but claim a devoted attachment to the great cause of democracy 
and of human liberty, which are identical with the cause of humanity itself." 
The belief was frequently expressed in the south that more of evil than of good 
would come from the war. Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, March 11, 1847, ibid. 

32 Calhoun, Works (Cralle, ed.), 4:421; Calhoun to Clemson, February 17, 1847, 
in Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 718; Calhoun from Wilson Lumpkin, May 
20, 1846, from F. W. Byrdsall, August 4, 1846, from E. B. Bhett, May 20, 1847, 
Calhoun papers; Cobb from John P. King, May 7, 1846, from Charles J. McDonald, 
July 7, 1846, from James F. Cooper, July 8, 1846, from John H. Lumpkin, November 
13, 1846, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 75, 84, 85, 86. F. W. 



36 Chauncey 8. Boucher m.v.h.r. 

Eobert Toombs of Georgia wrote to Calhoun on April 30, 
1.847: "I begin to fear that the question [of slavery] is fast 
approaching a crisis. It seems our successes in Mexico have 
greatly raised the pretensions of Polk and his cabinet, and the 
weakness and divisions of Mexico will in all probability induce 
her to accede to terms which we ought not to demand and which 
will be disgraceful to her and ruinous to us. You are aware 
of my early and uniform disrelish of the idea of the appropri- 
ation of Mexican Territory. I can see nothing but evil to come 
of it. And now I do not clearly see how it can be well avoided to 
some extent." 33 

True it is that one of the most ardent expansionist prop- 
agandists in the Polk administration was the secretary of the 
treasury, Robert J. Walker of Mississippi. Early in the war 
he advocated taking all the territory belonging to Mexico north 
of a line drawn due west from the mouth of the Rio Grande to 
the Pacific. His chief reason for this policy was not to increase 
the area of slavery but to sustain the administration by meeting 
the demand of the people of the country at large for territorial 
acquisitions. He was not an aggressive proslavery man, as is 
shown by the fact that for years he advocated gradual emanci- 
pation in the United States ; he proposed it for Texas as a con- 
dition of annexation; he freed his own slaves in 1838; he sus- 
tained the treaty for suppressing the African slave trade; he 
opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise; and, while 
governor of the territory of Kansas, he pursued such a course 
that he was accused of being a traitor to southern interests. 34 

Byrdsall wrote to Calhoun from New York on August 4, 1846: "One of our 
Commission merchants or agents of manufacturing establishments of other States, 
a brother of the well known Whig Simeon Draper, avowed to a gentleman of my 
acquaintance, that he hoped the Mexican war would involve the country in a public 
debt of one hundred million dollars. When questioned as to the reason, he replied 
because it would compel the restoration of a high Tariff. This man is but one of 
a numerous class whose selfish interests overrule all considerations of the loss of 
life and destruction of property which must occur before such a debt could be in- 
curred, as well as all other considerations of patriotism or common justice. And yet 
it is very probable that he (as well as most of the class he belongs to) is a member 
or elder of a Christian church — a praying and hymn singing man. ' ' Calhoun papers. 

33 Ibid. 

3*Elwood Fisher to Calhoun, September 24, 1846, Calhoun papers; Louis B. 
Pendleton, Alexander H. Stephens (American crisis biographies — Philadelphia, 1908), 
83. T. R. R. Cobb wrote to Howell Cobb from Athens, Georgia, on June 23, [1847] : 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 t^i Aggressive Slavocracy 37 

David Johnson, governor of South Carolina, wrote to Cal- 
houn on October 26, 1847: "The case contemplated by the Wil- 
mot proviso may never arise. If unhappily it should — for I 
should deprecate the acquisition of territory from Mexico by 
conquest — the new states will probably come to our aid." He 
added that, even admitting that the war had been rightfully 
begun to protect ourselves against the intrusion of Mexico, we 
had done enough when we drove the Mexicans out of the 
territoiy between the Nueces and the Rio Grande ; and to push 
the war further, for conquest and for permanent occupation, 
was unwise, unjust, and contrary to his notions of moral right. 35 
Eustis Prescott wrote to Calhoun from Memphis, on November 
8, 1847: "If we must receive territory, it should be open to 
the citizens of every state with their property, [and] if such 
territory ever applies to become a member of the Union, the 
people will decide whether we shall or shall not prohibit slavery 
within her borders. ' ' 36 James Gadsden, of Charleston, South 
Carolina, wrote to Calhoun on January 23, 1848, that "the 
great object at this time is to arrest the mad designs of con- 
quest. . . . The cry of the administration on that subject 
has been echoed and the whole Pack of hungry land hounds 
have opened up on the scent." He still hoped, however, that 
the whigs and the sober-minded patriots of the democratic party 
would combine against large acquisitions and would rescue the 
country from "the catastrophe into which Presidential making 
and a blind ambition of conquest is hurrying Polk and his ad- 
visers." 37 John A. Campbell, of Mobile, Alabama, thought that 

"I am opposed to this Government dismembering Mexico. Let us whip her 
decently and give her a good government, such as the people wish. If they after- 
wards wish to be annexed we can do it. I am for extending the area of freedom, 
but not by war. The odious doctrine upon which Britain acts of taking territory 
for the expenses of the war is anti-Democratic. Let the glory of our government 
be that not one citizen lives under its laws that is not there by choice." Corres- 
pondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 88. 

35 Calhoun papers. 

3« Ibid. 

37 He added, however, that probably the Sierra Madre range was the great nat- 
ural barrier which should be placed between the Anglo Saxon and the Spanish 
races. "A river will not answer. The whole of a valley must bet settled by the 
same people, and the valley of the Eio Grande is so susceptible of a large population, 
that it will constitute a barrier population, which with the difficulties of the Sierra 
Madre will always make us safe on that frontier." Calhoun papers. 



38 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

the war had been wrongfully begun; that acquisition of more 
territory was dangerous to the union from many standpoints 
not connected with slavery; and that, from the standpoint of 
the balance of power between the slaveholding and the nonslave- 
holding states, it would be ruinous to the former, for much of 
the territory, because it was unfit for use by slaveholders, was 
bound to make free states. 38 

Of course, once their country was at war, the people would 
support it, whether right or wrong. Through 1846 and 1847 
many letters were written to Calhoun approving his course in 
the beginning when he tried to avoid the war, but suggesting 
delicately that now since the country was actually at war, it 
would not do for anyone to fail to lend a vigorous support. 
Southerners who were actually suffering in their fortunes 
through the "accursed war" were loyal patriots in the country's 
time of need, even though they had no stomach for the manner 
of getting into the war or for the prospect of what was to come 
from it. 39 

Most of the men quoted or referred to above were democrats. 
What was the attitude of the southern whigs? As partisans 
their cue was to oppose the war and to discredit the ambitions 
of the democratic administration as far as they dared without 
laying themselves open to the charge of being traitors to their 
country. The statement has been frequently made, however, 
that during the ante-bellum period party differences were sub- 
merged in the south whenever any crisis appeared which in- 
volved sectional interests connected with the "peculiar insti- 
tution." If this is true then surely here was a time, according 
to the orthodox version, when southern whigs and democrats 
alike should have joined forces to secure this accretion of 
strength for the section. The facts are that not even the demo- 
crats were united in the course often attributed to them and 

38 John A. Campbell to Calhoun, November 20, 1847, in Correspondence of John 
C. Calhoun, 1139. 

sa Calhoun from Wilson Lumpkin, May 20, December 17, 1846, from H. W. 
Connor, January 9, 1847, from J. Hamilton, February 7, 1847, Calhoun papers; Cobb 
from Thomas R. E. Cobb, May 12, 1846, from J. B. Lamar, June 24, 1846, in 
Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 76, 82 ; Charleston Mercury, Novem- 
ber 10, December 12, 1846; January 12, 16, February 1, 1847; Greenville Republican, 
October 30, June 19, 1846; January 15, 22, 1847; Cliarleston Southern Patriot, 
January 19, 1847. 



Vol vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 39 

the whigs pursued, almost unitedly and quite consistently, a 
policy of opposition to the war and its resulting acquisition of 
territory. Many of the whigs had opposed the annexation of 
Texas because they wished to avoid a dishonorable war and 
they opposed the course of the president largely on that basis. 
Even the whig annexationists, such as Stephens of Georgia and 
Brown of Tennessee, charged that the war was unnecessary 
and unjustifiable; they condemned it as a war which aimed 
solely at conquest. "Even the lay members of the party soon 
began to lose the enthusiasm which a successful war, giving 
promise of desirable acquisitions of territory, usually arouses. 
They then demanded that the war be terminated at the earliest 
possible occasion." 40 

With the introduction into the house of the Wilmot proviso 
in August of 1846, providing that none of the territory which 
might be acquired from Mexico should be open to slavery, the 
south was again put on the defensive. It was soon confronted 
with assertions made on the floor of the senate and elsewhere 
that all parties in the nonslaveholding states had come to a 
fixed and solemn determination upon two propositions : one was 
that there should be no further admission into the union of any 
states which permitted, by their constitutions, the existence 
of slavery ; and the other was that slavery should not thereafter 
exist in any of the territories of the United States. Surely this 
was warning enough to cause southerners to calculate their 
relative strength in the union and to resolve that for the sake 
of preserving the union, as well as for their own protection in 
it, this design of the antislavery forces must be thwarted. So, 
instead of being aggressively interested in the Mexican war 
at its beginning as a means of adding slave states to be used 

4 <> Cole, The whig party in the south, 119; Pendleton, Alexander H. Stephens, 
76-83, 89-92; John B. Lamar to Cobb, June 24, 1846, in Correspondence of Toombs, 
Stephens, and Cobb, 82; Joseph Pickens wrote to Calhoun from Eutaw, Alabama, on 
January 6, 1848, that he and his whig friends approved of Calhoun's speech on 
the war ; some of the ' ' old Hunkers ' ' did not. ' ' I have from the first thought that 
the War might have been avoided if proper prudence had been used by Mr. Polk. 
I think he lacks the bump of caution if nothing else. I have no hesitation in 
believing that the President violated the Constitution knowingly and willfully in 
rushing us into this uncalled for and unnatural War with Mexico, and if his acts 
are allowed to go unrebuked the Constitution is a perfect dead letter." Calhoun 
papers. 



40 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

for an aggressive purpose, the south was forced, during the 
course of the war, to become interested in a negative and de- 
fensive phase of the territorial question; it must prevent the 
war from being used to serve an aggressive purpose by the 
enemies of slavery. 41 

Joseph W. Lesesne of Mobile wrote that although in the 
earlier period of the war there had been in the south, as in 
the north, a strong sentiment for acquisition of territory — 
because "an insane thirst after land" was "the great American 
disease" — there was now, in August of 1847, a growing dis- 
position in the south to come out boldly against further acqui- 
sition of territory as the only practicable mode of saving the 
south; for, if a result of the increase of territory should be 
the enactment of the Wilmot proviso into law, it would mean 
ruin for the south. 42 Thus the early enthusiasm of the south 
for new territory was of the character common to the people 
of the country as a whole. But when southerners appreciated 
fully the slavery complication and saw that the prospect of 
new territory was causing further attacks by the abolitionists, 
they rued the day when conquest was begun. 43 

When the Wilmot proviso brought the sectional issue squarely 

4i Calhoun, Works (Cralle, ed.), 4:340; Calhoun from J. Hamilton, February 7, 
1847, from Samuel A. Wales, June 17, 1847, from J. W. A. Pettit, June 18, 1847, 
from F. W. Byrdsall, July 29, 1847, from Daniel E. Huger and others, August 2, 
1847, from Joseph W. Lesesne, August 21, 1847, from Elwood Fisher, August 22, 
1847, Calhoun papers; Calhoun from Edward Fisher, December 2, 1846, from Wilson 
Lumpkin, January 6, 1847, from Fitzwilliam Byrdsall, February 14, 1847, Calhoun 
to Mrs. T. G. Clemson, December 27, 1846, in Correspondence of John. C. Calhoun, 
716, 1096, 1102, 1104; Charleston Mercury, January 14, February 17, June 24, 
1847; Greenville Republican, January 22, February 12, 1847; Pendleton Messenger, 
January 22, 1847. 

4 2 Joseph W. Lesesne to Calhoun, August 24, 1847, in Correspondence of John 
C. Calhoun, 1130. 

4 3 Joseph W. Lesesne, writing to Calhoun from Mobile on August 21, 1847, 
commented at great length on the fact that the people of the south were not 
sufficiently aroused for their own defense against the attacks from the north, of 
which the Wilmot proviso was but one example. "Should the Whig party concur 
with us that for the sake of peace on this question we will take no more territory 
we may escape the dangers that threaten us." Elwood Fisher, writing to Calhoun 
from Cincinnati on August 22, 1847, said that political rumors had it that the 
Silas Wright men of New York insisted on acquisition of territory to augment the 
strength of the nonslaveholding states, and that both parties in that state were 
warmly in favor of the Wilmot proviso because they could make of it good political 
capital with the people. Calhoun papers. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 41 

before congress southern whigs joined southern democrats to 
block the measure, and were successful, thanks to some " north- 
ern men with southern principles." The northern whigs hav- 
ing shown fairly clearly their antislavery character, southern 
whigs tried to solve the problem of party harmony by proclaim- 
ing their hostility to the acquisition of territory as a result 
of the war. Indeed, they came to believe that not simply the 
preservation of the whig party was at stake, but quite as likely 
either the "peculiar institution" or the union. Patriotism 
therefore demanded that this dangerous slavery complication 
be avoided by blocking annexation of Mexican territory. 4 * Even 
General Taylor, who, it has been said, was later elected as a 
southern president, announced, after Mexico had been placed 
at the mercy of the American armies, that he was decidedly 
opposed to the acquisition of any territory south of 36° 30', 
which might endanger the permanence of the union by fomenting 
a sectional controversy. Furthermore, when reports began to 
be circulated that conditions of soil and climate would make 
slavery a physical or an economic impossibility in most of the 
new region proposed to be annexed, the Wilmot proviso became 
simply an insulting abstraction which, together with the danger 
of additional free states in the southwest, could be avoided by 
blocking annexation. 45 

Thus opposition to the annexation of Mexican territory was 
accepted by many southern whigs, and many southern demo- 
crats as well, as the foundation for the defense of the southern 
institution and southern rights. The Wilmot proviso was but one 
aspect of the greater issue. A law passed by the general as- 
sembly of Pennsylvania in March, 1847, to impede and prevent 
the recovery of fugitive slaves, was regarded as a more definite 
proof that the north was preparing to weaken slavery bit by 
bit until its utter collapse was assured. Nothing less than this 
was the ultimate aim. "The Mexican war has been used by our 
northern and eastern enemies as a means by which they hope 
to rob us of all constitutional guaranties, subvert institutions 
most essential to our peace and prosperity, strip us of the 
insignia of sovereignty, pass a sentence of social degeneration 

4* Cole, The whig party in the south, 119; Luther J. Glenn to Cobb, December 
1, 1847, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 89. 
*s Cole, The whig party in the south, 121-123. 



42 Chauncey S. Boucher m.v.h.k. 

upon us, and effect our complete and total ruin," wrote Percy 
Walker from Mobile on October 10, 1847. 46 

Even when faced by this crisis, however, the south did not 
rally upon a defensive position as some of its truer citizens, 
less interested in party politics, would have had it do. Apathy 
was breeding future trouble, when decision and firmness were 
needed to avoid it. Southern unity would work wonders — 
would solve the problem once for all, some believed — but that 
essential was lacking. A few men saw clearly the course events 
were taking in the north : the abolitionists, though few in num- 
ber, were recruiting their ranks steadily, and by clinging stead- 
fastly to their basic principle they were holding the balance 
of power between the two main parties and were forcing con- 
cessions now from the whigs and now from the democrats. 
They had, as a result, come to be courted alternately and to- 
gether by both parties until in many places it had come about 
that no politician was considered "available" who could not 
enlist in his behalf this necessary abolitionist vote. The only 
chance for southerners to maintain for any length of time their 
rights under the constitution was to be found in united action ; 
yet little headway could be made in this direction. 47 

-*e He added : ' ' The assault has been kept up for years, but under the false 
assurances that the great majority of the non-slaveholding people were not parties 
to it, we have remained idle and inactive, until our enemies have become powerful 
enough to control the Legislatures of Ten Sovereign States, which in the most solemn 
forms of Law, have declared against us. . . . Our action should be calm, 
determined, and above all united. We must endeavor to make the Southern States 
think and feel and act alike, upon this subject. How is this to be done?" Calhoun 
papers. Calhoun from C. J. Faulkner, July 15, 1847, from Joseph W. Lesesne, 
September 12, 1847, from H. W. Peronneau, September 25, 1847, from L. M. Keitt, 
October 1, 1847, from David Johnson, October 26, 1847, from Wilson Lumpkin, 
December 20, 1847, from Wyndham Eobertson, Jr., May 10, 1848, from F. W. 
Byrdsall, June 25, 1848, from L. H. Morgan, June 30, 1848, from Chesselden Ellis, 
July 5, 1848, from B. F. Porter, July 17, 1848, from G. B. Butler, July 29, 1848, 
ibid.; Calhoun, Works (Cralle, ed.), 4:527; Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, November 

18, 1847, in Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, 1135; Isaac E. Holmes to Cobb, 
August 21, 1847, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 88. 

47 Calhoun from Wilson Lumpkin, August 27, 1847, from Joseph W. Lesesne, 
September 12, 1847, from H. W. Connor, October 6, 1847, from Percy Walker, 
October 10, 1847, from David Johnson, October 26, 1847, from A. Bowie, January 

19, 1848, from J. A. Campbell, March 1, 1848, from W. W. Harlee, June 8, 1848, 
from W. L. Yancey, June 14, 1848, from F. W. Byrdsall, June 25, 1848, from Joseph 
W. Lesesne, July 5, 1848, from Benjamin F. Porter, July 17, 1848, from Wilson 
Lumpkin, August 25, 1848, from Z. L. Nabers, November 29, 1848, Calhoun 



Vol viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 43 

Once the treaty was concluded and the new territory ac- 
quired, the debate began in earnest concerning the powers of 
congress over the territories and the rights of citizens therein. 
Even on this question, however, the south could not agree on 
a defensive program. 48 

papers; Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, January 6, 1847, in Correspondence of John C. 
Calhoun, 1102. A rather unique view of the acquisition of territory from Mexico 
was presented to Calhoun in January, 1848, by a northern Presbyterian clergyman 
who asked that his name not be used, but said that the subject matter he presented 
could be used. He gathered much of his information from abolition sourcea and 
the more numerous class of antislavery men who did not belong to abolition 
organizations. With these classes primarily, he said, the project of an extensive 
acquisition of Mexican territory was fast gaining ground; in their view, the more 
extensive the better. Whether slavery were extended over this territory or not, 
they thought that the annexation of it would ultimately overthrow the institution. 
Of course, if they could get the territory and keep it free, the forces of slavery 
would be so surrounded and outnumbered that the end of the institution would 
soon be compassed. But, even if slavery were not excluded, extensive acquisition 
of territory was favored for the same ultimate result, though it would be longer 
in attainment. They reasoned as follows: in proportion as slavery is extended over 
a greater area, in that proportion is it weakened; the slaves taken to the new 
territory must come from the old slave states; in those states fewer slaveholders 
and friends of slavery would be left to bear up against the onsets of their enemies; 
white laborers would flow in to take the places of the removed slaves ; as immigration 
and the laws of population gave preponderance to the nonslaveholding whites, 
antislavery presses could be set up right among the slaveholders without fear of 
molestation; then the battle would be more than half won, and the slaveholders 
could be defied; the south did not have slaves enough to take permanent possession 
of extensive territory and hold its own in either the old or the new states; with 
powers divided and energies distracted it could be cut to pieces in detail. Only 
temporarily, too, would the south have the preponderance in congress, for while 
gaining slave states at the south, it would soon lose them at the north; Virginia, 
Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina would soon become 
free. The writer concluded: "From what I can learn I think the signs of the 
times hereabouts indicate that the Abolitionists and their coadjutators will go 
for extensive annexation at all hazards. If they can enforce the Proviso they 
will. But if not they will favor secretly if not openly what they regard as the 
next best, i. e. a great extension of territory and a corresponding expansion of 
slavery. This will, perhaps, explain the reason why the National Era, the anti- 
slavery paper at Washington, goes for the acquisition of territory and yet strenuous- 
ly urges the Proviso. It betrays their secret intentions." He said that extensive 
acquisition was favored in the north not alone by the antislavery men, for the 
reasons stated, but by various other classes, each expecting it to serve a peculiar 
interest; among such classes were the ardent friends of the administration, specu- 
lators, capitalists, manufacturers, the military, et cetera. George H. Hatcher to 
Calhoun, January 5, 1848, Calhoun papers. 

48 Chauncey S. Boucher, ' ' The secession and co-operation movements in South 
Carolina," and "South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession," in Wash- 



44 Chauncey 8. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

The Wilmot proviso, which precipitated one of the most bit- 
terly contested phases of the slavery controversy, was certainly 
not loftily conceived. It had its origin among democrats who 
were discontented over the veto of internal improvement bills 
and the distribution of the patronage. Another factor was 
impatience in regard to Oregon; the northwestern expansion- 
ists did not get as much territory as they coveted, and they 
claimed that half of Oregon had been given away. 49 

Though the "Wilmot proviso was introduced in 1846, and 
many in the south at once saw that a crisis was at hand which 
demanded concerted action, and many suggestions were offered 
as to the best method of procedure, no agreement on policy 
or plan of action could be reached in the next four years — in- 
deed, such agreement within a single state was rare, and when 
reached at all was agreement only upon a first step which com- 
mitted the state to nothing and might lead or be turned in almost 
any direction. Even in the state which was supposed to be 
most radical and most free from internal party strife — South 
Carolina — no agreement could be reached on a platform state- 
ment of policy and action which meant anything more than vague 
hints or threats. The proviso did little to unite the south be- 
yond evoking an agreement in opinion that the placing of such 
a principle upon the statute books should be defeated if pos- 
sible. Southerners concurred in a general way in the belief 
that they might have some rights in the territories, but as to 
what the extent of those rights was, upon what legal or constitu- 
tional basis to rest them, they could not agree ; in other words, 
while they were united in believing that the Wilmot proviso must 
be resisted, they could not agree upon the necessary positive po- 
sition or statement with which to parry. Many suggestions of 
principle or policy were made, but from the presentation of the 
proviso until the election of 1860 the south was not united upon 
a thoroughly satisfactory answer to the troublesome and com- 
plicated territorial question. 

ington university studies, Humanistic series, 5:97-101; 6:83-144; Charleston Courier, 
November 27, December 2, 8, 16, 1847; South Carolina, House journal, 1847, pp. 
204, 206; Joseph W. Lesesne to Calhoun, August 24, 1847, in Correspondence of 
John C. Calhoun, 11, 30. 

49 William E. Dodd, Expansion and conflict {Riverside history of the United States 
— Boston and New York, 1915), 170. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 45 

The divergence of opinion in the south in regard to future 
policy or action, after the acquisition of territory had become 
a certainty, is shown by the division among southern whigs: 
some advocated disunion if the proviso were passed ; some would 
have accepted the extension of the Missouri compromise line as 
a fair settlement involving mutual concession; a significant 
minority were ready to acquiesce, if the proviso should pass 
both houses and receive the president's signature. 50 

Calhoun answered the Wilmot proviso with a denial of a 
constitutional power in congress to discriminate between the 
states by passing a law which would " directly, or by its effects, 
deprive the citizens of any of the states of this union from emi- 
grating with their property, into any of the territories of the 
United States." The section could not be thoroughly united 
on this pronouncement, however, for there were prominent law- 
yers of both parties in the south who believed that congress did 
have jurisdiction over, and power to deal with, slavery in the 
territories. 51 

The proposal to extend the Missouri compromise line of 
36° 30' to the Pacific coast was not without its embarrassments 
on points of principle, for it would "yield up forever the con- 
stitutional question"; it would be a complete admission of the 
power of congress over slavery in the territories. Nevertheless, 
the position of many was clearly stated by a man who said: 
1 ' Although ... the north has no right to claim our ex- 
clusion from one foot of the territory, yet as they do claim it 
most earnestly and there is no practical benefit in our setting up 
a counter claim to any above 36° 30' I am for settling the con- 
troversy by adopting that line." Others, who were interested 
mainly in the success of the democrats in the coming election, 
had little patience with constitutional quibbles, asserting that 
"this idea that constitutional questions may not be compromised 
is all fallacious." They preferred the "Missouri basis" be- 
cause that would satisfy the northern democrats best and would 
bring party harmony, since both the northern democrats and 
the southern democrats could, without sacrifice, still retain their 

so Cole, The whig party in the south, 124; Calhoun from J. T. Trezevant, June 
7, 1849, Calhoun papers. 

si Calhoun from J. A. Campbell, March 1, 1848, ibid.; Cole, The whig party in 
the south, 137. 



46 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R 

particular views in regard to the extent of congressional con- 
trol over the territories. 52 

Squatter sovereignty, put before the senate in the Dickinson 
resolutions in December, 1847, and approved by Cass in the 
Nicholson letter later in the same month, was not satisfactory 
to all. Objection was frequently registered that it was but a 
temporary evasion of the points of constitutional principle and 
not a permanent and satisfactory solution of them; and there 
was too much certainty of embarrassing complications which 
would develop from an attempt to apply the theory in actual 
practice. Many, however, were interested mainly in the elec- 
tion of Cass, were willing to accept his Nicholson letter as satis- 
factory, resented attempts to force a definition of squatter 
sovereignty any more clear than Cass had made, and opposed 
" pressing nice, hair-splitting distinctions on the subject upon 
our northern democratic friends, whose liberality should be 
appreciated but not abused." Such men, however, might state 
very clearly, privately, their reasons for believing that a ter- 
ritorial legislature had no right to prohibit slavery and that 
such action could be taken only when the constitution for state- 
hood was framed. However, when a southerner contended 
"that our people should have permission to go" to the terri- 
tories "with their peculiar property and risk the decision of 
a majority when the territory forms a constitution and demands 
admission as a State, and that Congress should guarantee this 
privilege," he was met with the argument presented by his 
neighbor, "If you yield that settlement to Congress, will it not 
be surrendering our rights to the Wilmot proviso men?" 53 

An added complication was introduced by the question wheth- 
er by Mexican law slavery was legally prohibited in the new 
territory. How to deal with the Mexican law without abandon- 
ing the principle that slavery rested upon state or local law only, 

62 Calhoun from B. K. Cralle, July 23, 1848, from Laurel Summers, October 21, 
1848, Calhoun papers; Cobb from Hopkins Holsey, December 31, 1847, from William 
Eutherford, Jr., April 16, 1850, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 
91, 189; Boucher, "The secession and co-operation movements in South Carolina," 
in Washington university studies, Humanistic series, 5:97-101. 

63 Calhoun from Louis T. Wigfall, June 10, 1848, from M. Torrance, June 19, 1848, 
from B. F. Porter, July 17, 1848, Calhoun papers; Cobb from Luther J. Glenn, 
February 12, 1848, from Henry L. Benning, February 23, 1848, from James C. 
Dobbin, June 15, 1848, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 95, 97, 107. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 47 

and without invoking national legislation for its protection, 
became a difficult question. 54 

The plan of the so-called Clayton compromise, providing ter- 
ritorial organization for Oregon, New Mexico, and California, 
and leaving the question of slavery to the operation of the 
constitution of the United States as interpreted by the supreme 
court also met with objections. It was recommended in July, 
1848, by a senate committee composed of northern and southern 
men of both parties ; it passed the senate with the aid of most 
of the southern whig members — though they disagreed in ex- 
pectations as to its operation; but it was shelved in the house, 
partly because of the efforts of southern whigs who believed 
that the court could only recognize the continuance of the Mexi- 
can law which prohibited slavery there. 55 

At least one Alabama man, a member of the state legislature, 
thought that the only policy which promised "any good practical 
results" was for each southern state to arm and equip a regi- 
ment of volunteer emigrants and send them into the new terri- 
tory to protect all southerners who might go there, "in the full 
enjoyment of their property of whatever description, should any 
effort be made, either by savages, Mexicans, or others to wrest 
it from them." 56 

As one reads the opinions of southern men on the territorial 
question, expressed both publicly and privately from 1846 
to 1850, one can only conclude that the situation was well 
stated by Joseph W. Lesesne of Mobile, when he wrote: "You 
must be aware how very various and conflicting the opinions 
of even good and able men at the south are with regard to the 
question of Slavery in the territories. All profess to be agreed 
that the Southern people are entitled to occupy them with their 
slaves as much as the Northern people with their goods and 
chattels. But how is this right to be enjoyed? how is it to be 

s* Cobb from Henry L. Benning, February 23, 1848, in Correspondence of Toombs, 
Stephens, and Cobb, 97;Calhoun from J. A. Campbell, March 1, 1848, Calhoun papers. 

55 Cole, The whig party in the south, 125; Calhoun from E. K. Cralle, July 23, 
1848, from H. V. Johnson, August 25, 1848, Calhoun papers; Stephens to the editor 
of the Federal Union (Milledgeville, Georgia), August 30, 1848, in Correspondence 
of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 117. See also Boucher, "The secession and co- 
operation movements in South Carolina," in Washington university studies, Human- 
istic series, 5:70. 

56 Calhoun from Benjamin Gardner, September 5, 1849, Calhoun papers. 



48 Chauncey 8. Boucher M - v - H - E - 

endangered? and if assailed, how is it to be protected? whether 
the question is not a purely legal or political one? These are 
points upon which no two persons are entirely agreed, and are 
full of intrinsic difficulty." 57 

It seemed to many in the south that the abolitionists were but 
showing their hand when they forced the territorial issue in 
the face of the fact, which many men seem to have realized, 
that there was but little territory in the recent acquisitions 
where slavery could be maintained profitably. The country 
was by nature dedicated to freedom. The valleys of the Sac- 
ramento and the San Joaquin were said to be almost the only 
districts in the territory acquired from Mexico where slavery 
could exist, and the question was soon settled there by the inrush 
of opponents of slavery following the discovery of gold. The 
territorial question was an abstraction. Many northerners 
and many southerners knew this. The northerners, or at least 
the abolitionists, insisted on the technical exclusion of slavery 
by law simply for the sake of principle, determined to check 
slavery at every point, hoping ultimately for a checkmate. By 
the same token the southerners who admitted that it was an ab- 
straction were interested in it even as such, because they saw 
that if the abolitionists were allowed to gain point after point 
without opposition, they would ultimately strike at slavery in 
the states. 

The election of 1848 shows again that at this time there was 
no such thing as a united, aggressive slavocracy. In spite of, 
the truckling of Van Buren and others of the abolitionists, in 
spite of the evidence of the effective political use to which the 
abolitionists could be put, and in spite of the signs of the times 
found in the operations of the free-soil party, the south, could 
not agree. The campaign of 1848 showed, perhaps, that for 
the first time the south was united on the view that southern 
interests must be protected. This, however, did not result in 
unity of action; for, having been brought to this realization of 
the necessity of a defensive (not aggressive) policy, southerners 
could agree no further. The southern electoral vote was al- 
most evenly divided between Cass and Taylor, in spite of the 
fact that Taylor was run as a southerner, who could at least 

57 Calhoun from Joseph W. Lesesne, July 5, 1848, Calhoun papers. 



vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 49 

be relied upon to check the progress of the antislavery move- 
ment, if necessary, by the exercise of the veto power. Fillmore, 
true, was then regarded as a bitter pill for the south to swallow 
in order to get Taylor — for a president had been known to die 
and give the vice-president an opportunity for mischief — but 
serious doubts were registered in many quarters as to whether 
Taylor could be the regular whig candidate and at the same 
time a true southerner. Furthermore, his Allison letter left many 
in doubt as to whether he would veto the Wilmot proviso if 
passed by a majority of congress. Party ties continued binding. 
There was as much interest in the spoils of office as ever. How 
could the south be united on an aggressive campaign to get con- 
trol of the presidency, when the leaders of the section were so far 
from agreement on the question supposed to be of greatest 
interest to the people? The word ''supposed" is used deliber- 
ately, for many men were interested quite as much in Taylor's 
views on the tariff as in any other point involved in the election. 
While one southerner had only praise for Cass and denunci- 
ation for Taylor, in view of the interests of the section, his 
neighbor used words equally strong, but with the names in re- 
verse order. Even though some regarded a choice between Cass 
and Taylor as a choice between evils for the south, a third party, 
devoted to southern interests only, was out of the question at 
this time, for it would rally but few recruits. 58 

Following the election of 1848 — which settled nothing — 
events soon brought on a crisis. With the discovery of gold 
in California, settlers rushed to the west in such numbers 
that the territorial question obviously could be delayed no 
longer. The abolitionists were registering the vow again and 
again that not another slave state should enter the union ; they 
were making persistent demands for action against slavery 
and the slave trade in the District of Columbia; interference 
with the rendition of fugitive slaves was becoming more frequent. 

In view of this situation the south became aroused, as never 

58 Letters by Elmore, Rhett, Brydsall, Fisher, Lumpkin, Peronneau, J ohnson, 
Prescott, Calhoun, Paulding, Harlee, Wigfall, Yancey, Ellis, Seabrook, Wilson, 
Webb, DeBow, 1847 and 1848, Calhoun papers; letters by Toombs, Cobb, Thomas 
W. Thomas, James C. Dobbin, Henry E. Jackson, Thomas Smith, W. C. Daniell, 
John Forsyth, James F. Cooper, 1848, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and 
Cobb. 



50 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

before. Some defensive action seemed to be imperative, but no 
agreement could be reached. During the course of the year 
1849 literally scores of suggestions for a policy and more or less 
definite action were made in as many different quarters. The 
writer actually has catalogued more than forty plans offered for 
the people of a county, congressional district, or state, individ- 
ually, and for the south as a whole. 59 

Through this maze of suggestions it is clear that though a 
majority realized that the south was in a desperate position, 
there was no agreement as to the best method of procedure ; and, 
further, even when a more or less definite proposal for action 
was made, there is little evidence that the proposition had been 
carefully thought out to a logical conclusion; more often than 
not the suggestion came from a befogged mind. 

Early in 1849 one of the suggested measures was attempted. 
On January 15 the southern members of congress met in caucus 
to consider an address prepared by Calhoun. The reports 
of the debates in the caucus seem to show that the hopes of 
those who expected southern politicians, whigs and democrats, 
to unite in defense of southern rights, were groundless ; instead, 
the southerners persistently divided on the old party lines, 
and even the democrats could not agree among themselves. 
The whigs displayed their conservatism and loyalty to the 
union. Their opposition was not sufficient to prevent the pub- 
lication of the address, but they did succeed in relegating it to 
the status of a party affair and thereby robbed it of much of 
the effect anticipated for it by its promoters. Toombs wrote 
to Crittenden that he had told Calhoun very bluntly "that the 
union of the south was neither possible nor desirable until we 
are ready to dissolve the Union . . . and that we intended to 
stand by the government until it committed an overt act of 
aggression upon our rights, which neither we nor the country 
ever expected." 60 The southern whigs, in the main, simply 
would have none of "Mr. Calhoun's desperate remedies," and 
in several state legislatures successfully exerted a moderating 
influence as reflected in state resolutions. They still placed 

59 To give the exact source citation for each one of these suggestions would 
take too much space. They are found in newspaper files and correspondence collec- 
tions covering the year 1849. 

60 Quoted in Cole, The whig party in the south, 140. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slav ocracy 51 

hope in Taylor's administration to protect their rights, and 
would not believe that consideration of the disunion alterna- 
tive would really ever become necessary. 

The southern address reviewed the development of the abo- 
litionist crusade, the offenses of the north, such as breaking the 
provisions of the constitution for the rendition of fugitive 
slaves, and the aggressions already launched in congress, and 
concluded that, unless vigorously resisted, the abolitionists would 
accomplish their design in the near future. Following emanci- 
pation, the blacks would be raised to political power by the 
north, and southern whites would sink into oblivion and degra- 
dation. Only unity of action would prevent such a calamity. 
However, in spite of the most earnest endeavors by those who 
pleaded that a united south could preserve southern constitu- 
tional rights and thus the union, the southern address, bearing 
the names of only forty-eight signers — a few more than half 
the southerners in congress — succeeded only in precipitating a 
three-cornered political fight in the south in the fall elections 
of 1849 among the whigs, the Calhoun-" chivalry "-southern- 
rights-democrats, and the regular or anti-Calhoun democrats. 
The regular democrats still believed that the northern demo- 
crats and the national party were true to the south and worthy 
of confidence and support. Neither democratic group had any 
confidence in the southern whigs, who, they believed, would 
support Taylor even if he signed a Wilmot proviso law. The 
resistance democrats had no confidence in the regular demo- 
crats, who, they believed, would cling to the party and the union 
until southern rights were beyond redemption. The regular demo- 
crats argued that all southerners, including the whigs, should 
support the northern democrats in their fight for southern rights, 
or these northern democrats, failing to receive the southern sup- 
port they deserved, would have to abandon the southern cause 
and appeal for abolitionist votes as the whigs were doing. In- 
deed, the southern address, it seemed, had been worse than 
useless: it had divided the south and thus had encouraged the 
antislavery forces in the north. 61 

61 Letters by Lumpkin, Wigfall, Byrdsall, Weems, Sims, Wiekliffe, Starke, 1849, 
Calhoun papers; letters by Cobb, Hopkins Holsey, John H. Lumpkin, George S. 
Houston, John W. Burke, James B. Bowlin, James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Thomas 
D. Harris, Henry L. Benning, 1849, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and 
Cobb. 



52 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - & 

While the status of California remained unsettled, in 1849, 
southern whig leaders, hoping to save embarrassment for the 
Taylor administration, rallied about a plan to try to get the new 
territory admitted as a single state before the inauguration. 
This would remove the troublesome subject, would add but a 
single state to the strength of the north, and would evade the 
issue of the Wilmot proviso without sacrificing the honor of 
the south. 62 

The resistance or radical wing of the southern democrats 
had no patience with the temporizing of the southern whigs, saw 
only the prospect of further aggressions in the immediate future, 
and began to talk of resistance and disunion. The movement 
took definite form in Mississippi and resulted in the call 
of a southern convention to meet at Nashville on June 3, 1850. 
The whigs tried at first to block the movement, and then, when 
this could not be accomplished, to force the radicals to moderate 
their position. Of course by this time a number of whigs had 
become infected with the contagion of ultrasectionalism and 
had become radicals, while conservative democrats tended to 
draw away from the radical leaders of their party. 

Taylor's message in December, 1849, disclosed his plan in 
regard to the territories. California should be admitted as a 
state at once with its free constitution, framed while congress 
had delayed giving it even territorial organization; and New 
Mexico was soon to follow the same course; thus the problem 
would be solved without the intervention of congress. Of course 
southern democrats at once denounced the heresy of ' ' approving 
the Wilmot proviso in the constitution of California, ' ' and Cal- 
houn dubbed it the ''Executive proviso." Southern whigs, ex- 
cept a few insurgents, approved the president 's plan. 

Meanwhile the time approached for selecting delegates to 
the Nashville convention. The policy of the southern whigs, in 
state after state, was either to block the sending of delegates 
at all, or, if delegates were to be sent, to try to select moderate 
men. They were partially successful in both directions. Before 
the convention met, however, the Clay compromise measures 
had been introduced into congress and were being debated. 
In spite of the efforts of whig congressmen, Taylor refused to 
sponsor the compromise plan, and prepared to come out even 

62 Cole, The whig party in the south, 143. 



vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 t^ Aggressive Slavocracy 53 

more strongly for immediate admission of California and New 
Mexico, determined to back the latter 's boundary claims against 
Texas with troops if necessary. Before he could succeed in 
bringing the issue between his plan and that of congress, he 
died after a brief illness. Taylor's death smoothed the way 
for the passage of the compromise. 

The Nashville convention meantime proved virtually a fiasco 
for two reasons : final action had to be delayed until after the 
adjournment of congress, and in view of the strong pronounce- 
ments against disunion or radical action which had been regis- 
tered in many southern states, the presentation of 36° 30' as 
an ultimatum and the pronouncing of disunion tenets seemed 
worse than fruitless. When the time came for the second ses- 
sion, there had been a union victory in Georgia and the whigs 
again were unrepresented. Fire-eating speeches and discussion 
of radical resolutions condemnatory of the entire compromise 
adjustment became the order of the day — with but very little 
perceptible effect in either section. The convention denounced 
all president-making conventions and recommended a southern 
congress to secure concerted action of the whole south. 

Distrust of the Nashville convention was felt from the time 
of the launching of the movement not alone among southern 
whigs; some conservative democrats also distrusted it because 
they feared that either the radicals would deliberately make 
demands which the nonslaveholding states could not sanction 
and secession would be forced, or the convention would be far 
from unanimous as to the proper course to be pursued and a 
divided front would weaken the south. The ultimatum of the 
Nashville convention — the extension of the Missouri compro- 
mise line to the Pacific — was indeed regarded by the whigs and 
the conservative democrats as an effort on the part of the 
radical democrats to force secession, because they wanted no 
compromise accepted. During the debate in congress on the com- 
promise measures in the summer and fall of 1850, the whigs and 
the conservative democrats argued for acceptance, if the meas- 
ures should be passed by congress, and endeavored to show that 
the measures really would put the south in as good a position 
as the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the coast. 63 

63 Cobb from Hiram Warner, March 17, 1850, from John B. Lamar, July 3, 
1850, from William H. Morton, July 10, 1850, from John H. Lumpkin, July 21, 



54 Chauncey S. Boucher m. v. h. r. 

Of course the abolitionists claimed at the time, and many 
historians since have maintained, that the compromise meas- 
ures of 1850 constituted a one-sided bargain, a victory for the 
aggressive slavocracy. But it is only fair to state that many 
southerners also regarded it as a one-sided arrangement, in 
v/hich the south gained nothing. Another free state was added 
— California. In the provision for the organization of Utah 
and New Mexico without the Wilmot proviso, the south gained 
nothing save a point of principle which should never have been 
raised — an unreasonably aggressive abolitionist move was tem- 
porarily blocked. The Texas boundary settlement, although per- 
haps equitable as far as Texas was concerned, was considered 
as a loss to the south as a whole ; a large district which was slave 
territory under Texas was now put in a status where it might 
be lost by the slave interests. The abolition of the slave trade 
in the District of Columbia was a clear concession to the abo- 
litionists. The new fugitive- slave law was regarded simply as 
a long-delayed recognition of southern rights under the consti- 
tution. 

Putting it still more forcefully, some southerners said that 
to admit California as a state with its free constitution, with- 
out giving the south a chance to share in the common heritage 
of California soil, during a territorial stage, was to enforce the 
Wilmot proviso in an insulting form. Furthermore, the policy of 
the administration officials in regard to nonintervention was 
pronounced a fraudulent pretense ; for, it was said, they had dis- 
patched agents who engineered the whole process of forming 
the state government and giving it a free-state hue. A more 
flagrant violation of the constitution and the principles of the 
federative compact had never disgraced the senate. What guar- 
antee was there that the south would not also, in due season, 
be robbed of the rest of the new territory, by some trick or 
theory conjured up for the purpose? The proposition to pur- 
chase nearly one-third of Texas, with the south 's own money, 
to become ultimately subject to some newfangled nonintervention 
or proviso of free-soilism, was another outrage. The abolition 

29, 1850, Cobb to William Hope Hull, July 17, a public letter (published August 20, 
and 21, 1850), in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 186, 191, 194, 206, 
208, 196; Boucher, "The secession and co-operation movements in South Carolina," 
in Washington university studies, Humanistic series, 5:84-107. 



Vol viii, Nos. 1-2 rphat Aggressive Slavocracy 55 

of the slave trade in the District of Columbia was not contested 
unanimously as a provision undesirable in itself, but as an 
entering wedge put there by the abolitionists to prepare for 
total abolition in the district in the near future. 

Such were the views of many southerners, summarized by 
one writer as follows: "A more wretched abortion, a more mis- 
erable apology for a compromise, a more wanton insult to the 
understanding and the firmness of the southern people, never 
before was offered by professing friends or open enemies." 
Another said its title should have been "The ignominious sur- 
render of the South." 

Such views did not prevail, however. The voices of the con- 
servatives were soon raised to show that the compromise set- 
tlement was fair, just, and honorable, or at least as good as 
could have been expected under the circumstances, and that 
certainly, if carried out faithfully, it left the south no grievance 
serious enough to cause talk about secession. 6 * 

To say, as a recent writer has said, that southern leaders pro- 
jected a scheme to enlarge the boundaries of Texas so as to 
extend slavery over a large part of New Mexico, and to accept 
the statement of the abolitionists at the time that the payment 
of ten millions of dollars to Texas for the alleged surrender 
of claims to a part of New Mexico was a bribe to secure votes 
necessary to pass the other measures, and that even the bound- 
aries conceded to Texas involved the surrender of free terri- 
tory, not only misrepresents the situation, but presents what 
has been proved untrue. Furthermore, if the compromise was 
such a victory for the south, why was it necessary to buy south- 
ern votes for it? 65 

64 See many letters of 1850 and 1851, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, 
and Cobb; Boucher, "The secession and co-operation movements in South Carolina," 
in Washington university studies, Humanistic series, 5:67-138. 

65 William C. Binkley, "The question of Texan jurisdiction in New Mexico 
under the United States, 1848-1850," in Southwestern historical quarterly, 24:1-38. 
Much light on the truth about Texan boundary lines and claims is found in 
Binkley, "The expansionist movement in Texas, 1836-1850," an unpublished thesis 
submitted for the Ph.D. degree at the University of California. The administration 
at Washington sustained the general claim of Texas to the Bio Grande boundary 
in 1845-1846; and in February, 1847, the United States secretary of state, in 
response to a protest from Governor J. P. Henderson, said that the military 
government set up by General Kearney over Santa Fe was only temporary and 
acknowledged the claims of Texas to that region. (Manuscript in file box 184, 



56 Chauncey 8. Boucher M - Y - H - R- 

To the south, the passage of the compromise of 1850 by con- 
gress served not as a pacifier, but as an apple of discord for 
at least a twelvemonth thereafter. Throughout most of the 
section forces rallied on one side for submission or union, and 
on the other for resistance or disunion ; and in Georgia, Missis- 
sippi, and South Carolina there came a contest as bitterly 
waged as any the south had ever seen. The compromise meas- 
ures were thoroughly dissected, with the result that one group 
pronounced the settlement, as a whole, fair, while the other 
group found little to praise in any single item and pronounced 
it as a whole most unfair and worthy only of decisive rejection. 

From the time of the passage of the measure until the elec- 
tion of 1852, about as many and almost the same variety of 
suggestions were offered for state or sectional policy as had 
been brought forward in the period just before the passage of 
the compromise. Most of these hinged upon the policy of re- 
jection of the compromise terms, or acceptance of them with the 
necessary accompaniment of proper guarantees for their pres- 
ervation. It became a period of confusion in the south, with 
readjustment of party lines and personnel in regard to national 
policy. A few whigs still clung to the idea of a continuance of 
their allegiance to the national party, but the majority, believ- 
ing that the northern wing of the party had become almost if 
not entirely an abolitionist party, looked toward the formation 
of a new national union party, which should eliminate the abo- 
litionists and stand for the guaranty of southern rights on the 
basis of the compromise settlement. Some democrats were 
willing to join such a party; others still regarded the national 
democratic party as such a party and hence wished to maintain 
affiliation with it ; while the ultra wing of the democratic party, 
joined perhaps by a few whigs, could see hope only in resistance 
— disunion. 

After a most bitter contest waged during elections, in legis- 
latures, and in state conventions, the conservatives won the day 
and an aggressive policy — secession — was defeated. A for- 

department of state, Austin, Texas. The writer is indebted to Professor C. W. Rams- 
dell for calling his attention to this document.) Of course this does not validate 
historically the claims of Texas asserted consistently from 1836, but it does validate 
the Texas claim as contested between Texas, New Mexico, and the United States 
after the Mexican war. 



Vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 57 

midable majority seemed to agree that secession at the time 
was not the proper step, and in the debates it became clear 
that a very considerable number refused to accept the meta- 
physics of the secession doctrine and held that a state or section 
possessed only the inherent right of revolution, and when such 
a policy was adopted all its consequences must be considered. 
Without reading some of the newspapers and correspondence 
of the time it is impossible to gain a full impression of the 
bitterness of the contest in the south. It is by no means 
preposterous to wonder whether the ultra leaders were not 
hated and distrusted by many of their more conservative south- 
ern brethren quite as much as were the abolitionists. Indeed, 
in many an instance, the abolitionists and the southern radicals 
were put in the same category as undesirable and dangerous 
citizens. 66 

"Confusion" is the only word which will describe the political 
situation in the south from 1848 to 1860, and especially in 1851 
and 1852. Indeed it was confusion confounded in the two years 
following the passage of the compromise of 1850, for the char- 
acter of the confusion in South Carolina was different from that 
in Georgia, while that in Mississippi was different from that in 
either Georgia or South Carolina. 

In South Carolina after a year of intense excitement and 
campaigning, with a great variety of complications introduced 
to becloud the situation and confuse the voter, things gradually 
settled down to an issue of immediate secession by that state 
alone versus cooperation with some one or more of the other 
southern states. When the question was finally settled at the 
polls in October, 1851, the cooperationists polled sixty per cent 
of the votes cast. This meant nothing except acceptance of 
the compromise settlement. 

In Georgia it was evident fairly early that the secessionists 
were in a minority, and the struggle growing out of the neces- 
sary readjustment of party lines came to be one to determine 
control of the political policy of the state for ensuing years. 
The internecine party warfare continued most bitterly in Geor- 

66 Calhoun papers; Correspondence of John C. Calhoun; Correspondence of 
Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb; Boucher, "The secession and co-operation movements 
in South Carolina," in Washington university studies, Humanistic series, 5:67-138. 



58 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R 

gia, with considerable shifting of personnel, for more than three 
years. 67 

In the south as a whole, during this period of party readjust- 
ment, the union democrats and the southern rights democrats 
prepared to restore harmony and cooperation. The tendency of 
the union whigs and of a smaller group of state-rights whigs 
was to give up the idea of longer affiliation with the national 
whig party and to join the democratic party; the campaign of 
1852, especially with the nomination of Scott, fostered this ten- 
dency. The northern wing of the whig party was regarded in 
the south as lost to abolition, while there was still some hope 
in the democratic party. Party ties, however, were strong, 
and many were very reluctant to see them severed; indeed, to- 
ward the middle of the campaign a strong effort was made, 
with some promises of success, to start a tremendous reaction 
in favor of Scott. Every effort was made to prove him sound 
on the compromise of 1850. When the returns came in, however, 
the extent of the southern whig disaffection was shown — Scott 
carried only two states, Kentucky and Tennessee. It was a 
vote of lack of confidence, on the part of the southern whigs, 
in Scott and the northern wing of the party. Several sporadic 
efforts were made to rehabilitate the whig party in the south 
after 1852, but the result was only confusion. All that was 
clear was that though the whig party in the south was dead, 
the section was not united under the single democratic banner 
with a single policy or program in case action were needed. 
1 ' The Whig party in the south had degenerated into a mere op- 
position party, ready to act under one name or another in the 
cause 'against the democrats.' " 68 

The south as a whole, at the time of the election of 1852, 
may be said to have reached something of an agreement on 
policy. The Georgia platform seemed to have become the south- 
ern platform: the compromise of 1850 was to be accepted as a 

67 Letters by Toombs, Stephens, Cobb, Thomas D. Harris, John H. Lumpkin, 
James Jackson, John B. Lamar, Orion Stroud, Henry L. Benning, George D. 
Phillips, Francis J. Grund, William H. Hull, Thomas C. Howard, John C. Johnson, 
James A. Meriwether, Henry S. Foote, Andrew J. Donelson, George W. Jones, John 
Slidell, Hopkins Holsey, John E. Ward, John Milledge, 1851-1852, in Correspondence 
of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb. 

es Cole, The whig party in the south, 281; Toombs to John J. Crittenden, Decem- 
ber 15, 1852, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 322. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 Tj ia t Aggressive Slavocracy 59 

final settlement, but if it were violated by the north, or if further 
aggressions came from that section, the south was determined 
to resist. But this was more the appearance of unity than a 
reality, for there was sure to come disagreement over such 
points as these : what was a violation of the compromise % what 
was a further aggression worthy of resistance? and, if resist- 
ance were demanded, what form of action should be taken? 
These questions were certain to revive the old differences and 
prevent unity of action. 

The Kansas-Nebraska bill was the next development to dis- 
turb the apparent equilibrium between the sections and to in- 
troduce further confusion among southerners. We do not as 
yet know all the forces back of the introduction of this meas- 
ure, but it seems to have been a political job, in which many 
northern politicians and groups were interested, with various 
and sundry motives and interests to serve. To represent it 
as the product of a united and aggressive slavocracy is to ob- 
scure the truth. Among the various factors produced by con- 
ditions in the nation at large and in several localities in partic- 
ular — factors compounded in just what proportion we do not 
as yet definitely know — which led to the bill to organize the 
Nebraska territory and to repeal the Missouri compromise, 
may be enumerated the following : the agitation for one or more 
transcontinental railways; the local demand in Missouri and 
Iowa for the organization of the territory ; the demands of the 
prospective settlers and speculators ; the activities of the Wyan- 
dot Indians ; the necessity for adequate protection for emigrants, 
travelers, traders, and mail-carriers in and through the terri- 
tory; the dissensions in the democratic party in Missouri and 
in New York; the Benton- Atchison feud in Missouri; Douglas' 
political position and aspirations; the question of slavery in 
the territories; and the appearance and growth, in some quar- 
ters, both north and south, of the idea that the principle of the 
compromise of 1850 had superseded that of the compromise of 
1820. 69 

6 9 P. Orman Ray, The repeal of the Missouri compromise; its origin and author- 
ship (Cleveland, 1909); Frank H. Hodder, "Genesis of the Kansas-Nebraska act," 
in Wisconsin historical society, Proceedings, 1912, pp. 69-86; Ray, "The genesis 
of the Kansas-Nebraska act," in American historical association, Annual report, 
1914 (Washington, 1916), 1: 259-280. 



60 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

Though the logic of Calhoun's pronouncements upon slavery 
in the territories seems now to have demanded the repeal of the 
Missouri compromise, it is highly doubtful whether more than 
a very few southern leaders, if any, other than a few in Mis- 
souri, had ever seriously considered striving for such action. 
Southerners had more or less generally accepted the Calhoun 
theory for future policy, at the time of its pronouncement, but 
had little thought, if any, of making it retroactive. Though a 
few of the leaders of what was called the Calhoun wing of the 
democratic party in Missouri, as opposed to the free-soil wing 
led by Benton, may have cherished the hope in 1853 that the 
Missouri compromise might be repealed — and one of them, 
Judge William C. Price, later boasted that he had originated 
and sponsored the idea as early as 1844 — there seems to be 
only such evidence as may be drawn from inference that south- 
ern leaders like Calhoun, Davis, Breckinridge, Toombs, Benja- 
min, and others of "the leaders of the aggressive slavery exten- 
sion party," with whom Price and the Calhoun democrats of 
Missouri are said to have been in close touch, were responsible 
for prompting and pressing for the repeal. In other words, 
the evidence is lacking to show that the repeal feature was the 
product of a proslavery extension plot among southern leaders 
at large. Even in so far as it was the product of the local polit- 
ical feud in Missouri — and this is its most intimate connection 
with the southern cause — it seems to have been precipitated 
by the aggressiveness of Benton against Atchison, and Atchi- 
son sponsored the repeal in the latter part of 1853 when forced to 
it, to save his very political life, in spite of the fact that he had 
said in the preceding March that there was no remedy for the 
law of 1820, since it could not be repealed. 70 

With all the pressing interests enumerated above, the ter- 
ritorial organization of Nebraska, whether with or without 
the repeal of the Missouri compromise, could not have been long- 
er delayed, it seems. In the face of circumstances, Douglas per- 
haps became convinced that he could best serve the interests 
of northern Illinois, his party, and himself by accepting the 
repeal amendment, when it was urged by Atchison and actu- 
ally presented by Dixon of Kentucky; and other interested 

70 Kay, ' ' The genesis of the Kansas-Nebraska act, ' ' in American historical associa- 
tion, Annual report, 1914, volume 1, pp. 259-280. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 61 

parties who were desirous only of the immediate organization 
of the territory were willing to accept the repeal because they 
believed that territorial organization might be delayed without 
it and that their immediate interests would not be adversely af- 
fected by it. 

Once the bill embodying the repeal of the Missouri compro- 
mise was before congress, a majority of the southern whigs in 
congress joined the southern democrats in support of it. The 
position of many was aptly put by Senator Clayton of Del- 
aware when he said: "I did not ask for it, I would not have 
proposed it ; and I may regret that it was offered, because I do 
not believe that it will repay us for the agitation and irritation 
it has cost. But can a Senator, whose constituents hold slaves, 
be expected to resist and refuse what the North thus freely of- 
fers us as a measure due to us ? ' ' 71 The first impulse of south- 
erners in general seemed to be to welcome the bill because its 
great underlying principles were nonintervention and popular 
sovereignty, making it the logical development of the compro- 
mise of 1850. They were inclined to view it simply as a long- 
delayed act of justice to the south, and felt that it would cer- 
tainly be unbecoming of a southern congressman to refuse it 
when offered. Even though it might not result in the actual 
extension of slavery, the point at issue was one of principle, 
and a wholesome moral victory might be gained. 

The passage of the bill is generally represented as a victory 
for the slaveholding interests. But there' were other interpre- 
tations of it in the south. Though all rejoiced because of the 
point of principle involved in this partial removal of the stigma 
of federal legislation directed avowedly against southern insti- 
tutions, many cautioned against building false hopes upon it, 
for the following reasons: the act would not put an end to 
antislavery agitation or congressional interference, for the op- 
eration of the act would inevitably bring the question back to 
the floors of congress ; the south would really gain nothing be- 
cause of its unequal capacity for immediate expansion, as 
compared with that of the north; and, furthermore, slavery 
would not be profitable in this territory. Many objected to the 
bill because they believed that it established the principle of 

71 Quoted in Cole, The whig party in the south, 293. 



62 Chauncey 8. Boucher m.v.h.e. 

squatter sovereignty in such a way as to preclude congressional 
protection against hostile territorial legislation. Many saw the 
ambiguities of the bill, and realized that it was likely to bring 
the issue between squatter sovereignty and popular sovereignty 
— meaning by the former the right of a people during the ter- 
ritorial stage to exclude slavery, and meaning by the latter the 
right to exercise such power only after reaching the condition of 
statehood, though not often was such a nice distinction drawn 
in denning these two terms even if the difference in principle was 
recognized. This ambiguity was glossed over, in some quarters, 
by talk of establishment of congressional nonintervention, or by 
a profession of belief that the bill said to slaveholders that they 
could go into the territory with their property and be safe 
until as a sovereign state the people decided for or against the 
institution. Others pointed out that northern democrats were 
defending the act, not as a measure of justice to the south, but 
as an antislavery measure — that instead of opening up north- 
ern territory to southern colonization, it really opened up 
southern territory to northern conquest. 

There were southerners, it must be added, who spoke their 
minds in and out of congress against the repeal of the Missouri 
compromise as an unjustifiable breach of plighted faith which 
could serve no practical end for the south and would ultimately 
cause only discomfort and loss. The whigs especially were in- 
different to the fate of the bill and could not share enthusiasm 
for an abstract principle which promised no practical advan- 
tages for the south. Apprehensions of a renewed agitation of 
the slavery question were frequently registered. 

The Kansas-Nebraska bill was a surprise quite as much to the 
south as to the north ; but, once it was introduced, it was natural 
that the south should easily convince itself that the measure 
was simply a measure of delayed justice involving no breach 
of faith in the repeal of the Missouri compromise. The south 
had accepted the compromise of 1820 in good faith, and had 
never thought of repudiating it. When new territory was ac- 
quired to the west of the Louisiana territory, the south had said 
again and again that it was willing to accept the principle of 
the Missouri compromise and extend the line to the Pacific. 
But the north would have none of it, had put the Wilmot pro- 
viso, instead of the Missouri principle, into the bill to organize 



Vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 t^ Aggressive Slavocracy 63 

Oregon, and had further repudiated the principle in the long 
struggle over California and New Mexico. Thus the north 
had abandoned the principle underlying the settlement of 1820 
and stood for a new one — absolute exclusion of the south from 
all territories. A new compromise agreement was reached in 
1850, which in principle rejected both that of the compromise 
of 1820 and the new principle sponsored by the north. Thus, 
after the north had abandoned the principle of 1820 and had 
accepted the new one of 1850, with what grace could it now 
object to the application of the new principle to the present 
and all future cases? The Kansas-Nebraska bill would settle 
the question in conformity with the declared will of the whole 
people, bring ''peace, equality and fraternity." This was the 
line of reasoning pursued by many northern democrats as well 
as southerners. 72 

It is not easy to discover the warrant for the statement made 
in a recent book that for ten years the leaders of the Calhoun 
section of the democratic party had been laboring to get rid 
of the Missouri compromise. Though many southerners after 
1846 repudiated the basic principle underlying the passage of 
the Missouri compromise — that congress had power over slav- 
ery in the territories — very few, if any, of these seriously con- 
templated asking for a repeal of the Missouri compromise as 
applied definitely to the Louisiana purchase territory. Indeed 
they would not have been led to deny the power of congress 
over slavery in the territories if the Wilmot proviso had not 
been introduced; and, when they did deny the power, they did 
it with future settlements in the new territory in mind. 

It is evident that during the development of the situation 
in Kansas which Sumner called the " crime against Kansas" 
and to which many historians refer as "bleeding Kansas," the 
south had little accurate information as to what was actually 
going on, either in Kansas or in administrative circles in Wash- 
ington. All sorts of conflicting reports and rumors were current 
in the south concerning what was happening in Kansas, how 
much the agents of the administration were responsible for inter- 
na Boucher, "South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession, 1852 to 
1860," in Washington university studies, Humanistic series, 6:79-144; Toombs to 
W. W. Burrell, February 3, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas to Cobb, April 2, 1854, 

Stephens to J. W. Duncan, May 26, 1854, Cobb to , April 21, 1856, 

in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 342, 343, 345, 363. 



64 Chauncey 8. Boucher M - v - H - E - 

fering with the working out of the principle of popular sover- 
eignty, and what was really the policy of the president, first 
Pierce, and then Buchanan. Even when a few southerners 
agreed on what they believed to be facts, they disagreed as to 
the significance of the facts and as to what the attitude and 
policy of the south should be. 

The one fact of which they were earliest certain was that 
the abolitionists had refused to accept the principle in good 
faith and to let the status of Kansas be settled through natural 
emigration and settlement. Many southerners from the very 
first feared and expected treachery, and believed that every 
available trick would be resorted to by their opponents to make 
Kansas a free state. As reports both true and false came to 
the south concerning the evidence of trickery and bad faith, 
many men were inclined to regard the outcome and the manner 
of its accomplishment as the final test whether the south could 
ever hope for justice in the union. Many became interested in 
the developments in Kansas and the whole territorial question, 
not merely for the sake of obtaining enough slave states and 
votes in congress to control the government, but as a question of 
principle. They believed that a greater question of principle was 
involved, the loss of which would mean that the abolitionists 
would then have a clear road on which to march to the abolition 
of slavery in the states. The rights of the southern states as 
equals in the union must be protected at some point at once, or 
they were completely lost. This was the stand at the bridge 
which must be taken to stop the onrush and complete victory of 
the abolitionists. 

During the period of uncertainty as to what was happening 
or going to happen in Kansas, many southerners, fearing trick- 
ery from the start and receiving reports confirming their fears, 
could only fall back upon the view that the proof of the pudding 
would be found in the eating. If the south were not given a 
fair chance in colonizing Kansas, if artificial emigration were 
stimulated in the north, if the president, whether Pierce or 
Buchanan, should instruct or permit his agents in Kansas to 
discriminate in any way against southern interests, if the south, 
after seeing California hurried into the union "against all law 
and all precedent because she was a free state," should see 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 t^ Aggressive Slavocracy 65 

" Kansas subjected to the rigors of the inquisition because she 
had a chance of being a slave state," if Kansas were refused 
admission either directly or through some ingenious circumlo- 
cution, simply because it was to be a slave state — then it was 
likely that the southern people would forsake the leadership 
of the conservatives and those who had urged acceptance of the 
bill, and that the radicals — the secessionists — would come into 
power. 

Though historians generally agree to-day that the proslavery 
men in Kansas resorted to more unfair methods than did their 
opponents, there were several points on which a fair-minded 
southerner, not knowing all the facts, could base an interpreta- 
tion similar to one or another of those just given. However, 
when confronted with the same report as to what had taken 
place, southerners disagreed radically in forming a judgment. 
While some men saw only evidences of betrayal and unjustifiable 
action on the part of President Buchanan and Governor Walker, 
others saw nothing to criticize. While some insisted that Kan- 
sas must become a slave state by whatever means were neces- 
sary, fair or foul, and resorted to most specious reasoning to 
prove a point, others were convinced that a large majority of 
the people in Kansas were against slavery, that the opposition 
to the submission of the question, in the constitution, to a free 
vote and fair count was simply the result of a fear that a major- 
ity would condemn slavery, and that "an effort to get a free 
state into the Union over the will of a majority of its citizens 
would never be submitted to at the south." 73 

Of course at the time of the Kansas-Nebraska bill the south 
would have welcomed the addition of another slave state, for 
defensive purposes in the national councils. The "border ruf- 
fians" of Missouri, however, and the slaveholders of the state 
generally, were interested in an immediate problem of defense 
which concerned them alone, primarily. The Missouri slave- 
holders were already surrounded by free territory on the north 
and east, and saw that if a free state were added on the west, 

73 Boucher, "South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession," in Wash- 
ington university studies, Humanistic series, 6 : 79-144 ; letters by Toombs, Stephens, 
Cobb, Thomas W. Thomas, William H. Hull, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, Joseph E. 
Brown, and many others, 1856-1858, in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and 
Cobb. 



66 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

and the underground railroad operated on three sides of this 
slaveholding peninsula "jutting up into a sea of free-soil," 
slave property in Missouri would be almost worthless. Slave- 
holding Missourians frequently asserted at the time of their 
interest in the Kansas struggle that theirs was a defensive 
movement to conserve existing slave property and an existing 
slave society. Their first thought was to defend what they al- 
ready possessed. To them the settlers of the Emigrant aid 
society appeared to be "bands of Hessian Mercenaries," an 
"army of hirelings," "military colonies of reckless and des- 
perate fanatics" — to use their own appellations. 

On July 29, 1854, the citizens of Platte county, Missouri, held 
a meeting at Weston, at which they resolved that all settlers 
sent to Kansas by free state aid societies must be turned back ; 
and they formed the Platte county self-defensive association, 
with the object of settling Kansas with proslavery men. So 
it was in the rest of Missouri: organized effort to win Kansas 
for slavery came only after the action of the Emigrant aid so- 
ciety was known. From the testimony of Missourians before 
the congressional investigating committee it seems that the 
invasion of Kansas for the purpose of voting had not been 
thought of until the leaders were convinced that the eastern 
emigrant aid societies had determined to colonize Kansas with 
antislavery men to make it a free state. In the south popular 
sentiment justified the action of the Missourians as being an 
act of self-defense against the unfair encroachments of the 
north. 74 

When in the autumn of 1855 the word came from Missouri 
to the rest of the south that unless recruits were sent at once 
to counterbalance the emigrants sent in by the northern socie- 
ties all would be lost, some sporadic efforts were made in several 
southern states to enlist volunteer companies to go to Kansas; 
fire must be fought with fire. The most famous expedition 
was that led by Major Buford of Alabama — some three hun- 
dred men recruited from several states. Though northern min- 
isters were raising funds to buy Sharpe's rifles for northern emi- 
grants, Buford 's men, out of respect for a proclamation by the 
president, were armed with bibles instead of rifles. In some 

7* Mary J. Klem, ' ' Missouri in the Kansas struggle, ' ' in Mississippi valley his- 
torical association, Proceedings, 9:393-413. 



Vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 67 

localities, where a company of ten or twelve volunteers was 
raised, composed largely of mechanics, artisans, and a few 
younger sons or nephews of planters, the men were given din- 
ners, balls, and other appropriate demonstrations and were 
treated as military volunteers ; and no doubt many of the men 
must have gone in the spirit of military volunteers. The cause 
for which they were no doubt prepared to fight, if occasion de- 
manded it, was not simply that of the rights of slaveholders in 
the territories, nor two more votes in the United States senate, 
but it was aptly stated on the banner which the Buf ord battalion 
carried when it left Montgomery: on one side was inscribed 
"The Supremacy of the "White Eace," and on the other "Kan- 
sas — The Outpost." This, in the minds of many southerners, 
was the real issue ; Kansas was really the outpost of the struggle 
for the supremacy of the white race, because if one point of 
principle after another were lost, the abolitionists would ac- 
complish their design to emancipate the slaves throughout the 
union ; and, with no real solution as yet suggested for the negro 
problem which would follow emancipation, southerners believed 
that the supremacy of the white race, with all its civilization, 
was truly at stake. 

During the struggle over Kansas the members of the strong 
southern opposition were at one with the southern democrats 
in desiring to see Kansas won as a slave state, since the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill had been passed, but the opposition condemned 
the use of violence to that end, opposed the adoption of the 
Lecompton constitution, and used the developments in Kansas 
to justify their saying "I told you so." It was the result many 
had predicted would follow the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise and the establishment of squatter sovereignty. 75 

Again it seems a pity that the abolitionists were so aggres- 
sive. Kansas was destined to be a free state even in spite 
of the repeal of the Missouri compromise. It seemed now to be 
demonstrated that organized efforts to stimulate a great rush 
of people to Kansas, to become permanent settlers, almost com- 
pletely failed both in the north and in the south. These efforts 
have long been overemphasized. They simply stirred up a 
greater amount of antagonism and strife than would otherwise 
have been produced. The intensity of the fight for Kansas 

75 Cole, The whig party in the south, 331. 



68 Chauncey S. Boucher m. v. h. r. 

drew strong spirits to the territory, among them many who 
were attracted by the opportunities to participate in exciting 
adventures and dangerous exploits. On the other hand, the 
turmoil kept out of the territory numerous settlers who wanted 
homes instead of trouble. In the end the natural forces of the 
westward movement, normal migration and settlement, and not 
the artificial forces produced by the slavery controversy, de- 
termined the character of the majority of the settlers; and 
these forces, balanced as they were at the time, determined 
that Kansas was to be a free state. 76 

The Kansas-Nebraska bill put an end to all possibilities of 
further cooperation between northern and southern whigs. Now 
was the time of all times for the formation of a southern party 
per se, and the working out of a grand sectional agreement as 
to platform policies and program of action. But this could 
not be. There were some democrats and some whigs who fa- 
vored such a course, but the radicalism of many of the former 
repelled those democrats who still had faith in the national 
democratic party, and also repelled those whigs who were still 
strong union men as well as those whigs who could not be 
reconciled to cooperation with democrats under any circum- 
stances. The result was that the know-nothing or American 
party was in large part the beneficiary and attracted to its 
ranks a great variety of elements who had few common interests 
and could not be brought to accept any very definite program. 
Many there were who joined the ranks of the know-nothings 
because they believed that here lay the best possibilities of 
serving sectional interests. The best arguments which they 
could present to this end were simply that the policy of the party 
would help to stifle the accretion of strength gained by the 
abolitionists from the foreign-born, and that the party was really 
a national one which would aid in putting down the slavery 
agitation by ignoring it. The growth of the party in the south, 
however, was simply proof that confusion was to continue in 
that section and perhaps become more confounded. 77 

76 William O. Lynch, ' ' Popular sovereignty and the colonization of Kansas from 
1854 to 1860," in Mississippi valley historical association, Proceedings, 9:380-392. 

77 Boucher, ' ' South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession, ' ' in Washing- 
ton university studies, Humanistic series, 6:79-144; Cole, The whig party in the 
south. 



Vol vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 69 

Even though every southern state save Maryland cast its 
electoral votes for Buchanan in 1856, the half million votes in 
the south for Fillmore showed that the opposition to the demo- 
cratic party was not eliminated. Following the inauguration of 
Buchanan the logic of the situation again called for unity in the 
south — "an undivided South as the base of a great constitu- 
tional party, embracing the conservative men of all sections," 
as Hillard of Alabama put it. 78 But again unity was not to be 
attained. The national democratic party ties were still too 
strong for many, and as many others placed no faith in this 
party. 

By this time there had grown up in the south what may best 
be called simply the " opposition" — a conglomeration of old-line 
whigs, know-nothings, dissatisfied democrats, and conservatives 
in general; their only common aims were opposition to the 
democrats in both local and national politics, and a cessation 
of the "eternal wrangling and spouting at abolitionism." 

The Dred Scott decision, published two days after Buchanan 
was inaugurated, was an attempt on the part of a majority of 
the supreme court to allay the bitter and dangerous sectional 
controversy by an endeavor to settle the then most troublesome 
phase of that controversy, the territorial question. But it came 
ten years too late. Had the decision been rendered in 1847 
the course of events in the next decade might have been con- 
siderably different — and perhaps fortunately so for all con- 
cerned. However, coming as it did in 1857, it involved too 
many complications. It accepted the doctrine of Calhoun, de- 
nying the power of congress to prohibit slavery in the territo- 
ries ; it declared unconstitutional the basic principle on which the 
republican party was organized, namely, the prevention of the 
extension of slavery into any more territories; it nullified the 
doctrine of popular sovereignty as expounded by Douglas and 
northern and many southern democrats, that slavery could be 
excluded by the people of a territory during the territorial 
stage ; it accepted the doctrine of a part of the southern demo- 
crats who maintained that slavery could be excluded only at the 
time of statehood ; it was an attempt to interpret the declaration 
of independence and the constitution of the United States in 

78 Quoted in Cole, Tlie whig party in the south, 327. 



70 Chauncey S.Boucher m.v.h.e. 

the light of the existing conditions, claiming for this interpre- 
tation that it must be the one intended by the men of the rev- 
olutionary period. 

Although there were grave misstatements of historical facts 
in the process by which the chief justice reached his conclusion 
in regard to the territories, it must be admitted that to the mind 
of a southerner, in view of the existing circumstances, the de- 
cision as to existing and future territorial policy could but seem 
eminently equitable. Perhaps a majority of northerners be- 
lieved that the chief justice, in describing the sentiments of the 
fathers respecting slavery, was doing what Horace Greeley de- 
scribed as ''saying a thing and being conscious while saying it 
that the thing is not true." This suggests a pertinent question 
regarding what is represented as the prevailing and accepted 
social philosophy of the south. 79 Were not many southerners, 
Avhen they talked and wrote about the morality and justice of 
slavery and about its being a divinely ordained institution, in a 
position like that described by Greeley — but a position forced 
upon them by necessity of circumstances for immediate pro- 
tection ? 

Though the charge was made at the time by republicans that 
the decision was the result of collusion between members of 
the supreme court and democratic politicians, including Bu- 
chanan and especially southerners, and that there had been a 
most elaborate and comprehensive program sponsored by the 
slavocracy to control the federal judiciary, nothing of the sort 
has ever been proved. No doubt it was suggested to the members 
of the court, after the case of Dred Scott was on their docket, 
that a general and all-embracing pronouncement from that au- 
gust body might do much to calm troubled waters. But the 
decision did not allay the controversy ; the court succeeded only 
in lowering its own standing in the eyes of thousands in the 
north and indeed intensified the bitterness of the conflict. The 
south gained nothing, except a moral victory in its own eyes, 
for statements soon came from many quarters in the north 
that the main part of the court's opinion as obiter dictum was 
mere verbiage for them and would not be accepted. 

In his debates with Douglas, Lincoln said that the Dred Scott 

79 To be considered more at length by the writer in a subsequent publication. 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 71 

decision had raised the alarming question whether the next step 
would not be a decision to legalize slavery in all the states of 
the union. There seems to be no evidence, however, that any 
such design was entertained by southerners. They realized full 
well that such a step would be extremely hazardous, for it would 
rob them of their last stronghold for defense of slavery within 
their own states — the argument that slavery in the states was 
entirely a state affair. In the light of the time, however, per- 
haps it was almost as natural and reasonable for Lincoln to 
make this charge as it was for the southerner to charge that 
virtually all the antislavery men of the north were definitely 
planning to have governmental action put an end to slavery in 
the slave states. In the eyes of each contestant the logic of the 
situation and the policies of the other seemed to lead to the 
step charged against the other, each taking for granted that the 
other had a perverted sense of justice and no sense of, or res- 
pect for, constitutional law. 

The Freeport doctrine, as set forth by Douglas in his debates 
with Lincoln in 1858 — that a territory might by "unfriendly 
legislation" keep slavery out in spite of the Dred Scott deci- 
sion — was not original with Douglas. In a speech in the house 
on December 11, 1856, James L. Orr of South Carolina had 
said: " There are some democrats who think the territorial 
legislatures have power to prohibit or introduce slavery. I do 
not. But, it matters not, either way, for in every slaveholding 
community we have local legislation and local police regulation 
appertaining to that institution, without which the institution 
would not only be valueless, but a curse to the community. The 
legislature of a territory can vote for or against laws. If the 
majority of the people are opposed to slavery, all they have to 
do is simply to decline to pass laws in the territorial legislature 
to protect it. So the question whether squatter sovereignty does 
or does not exist by virtue of the Kansas-Nebraska bill is of 
no importance. It does by virtue of their power to pass police 
regulations. ' ' 

The shrewder thinkers in the south were not surprised by the 
Freeport doctrine, for by this time they saw the hopelessness 
of the south's position, practically, in regard to the territories. 
Although the constitution and the Dred Scott decision might 



72 Chauncey 8. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

prevent the passage of certain laws to the injury of the slave- 
holder in the territories, they could not compel for his benefit 
the passage of laws without which slavery simply could not be 
maintained. Some southerners therefore suggested demanding 
the enactment of a slave code by congress for the protection of 
slavery in the territories. Although a congressional slave code 
for the territories seemed a logical step following the Dred 
Scott decision, thinking southerners met embarrassments when 
they considered demanding a code. What more could the abo- 
litionists ask than thus to be given the legal right to legislate 
for the negro? Without affecting his legal status as a slave, 
they could contrive a code which would do more mischief than 
anything they had yet been able to do. They could give him 
the power to testify; they could require certain forms prelimi- 
nary to his sale before a magistrate; they could invest him 
with certain privileges as to time, goods, dress, all perfectly 
consistent with his condition as a slave, which would utterly 
subvert the master's authority and give the negro the power 
of perpetual and, as far as profit was concerned, destructive 
annoyance. Did the advocates of the code forget that since 
1847 most statesmen of the south of any reputation, "from 
Mr. Calhoun down," had been struggling to establish the doc- 
trine of nonintervention by congress in the territories'? Was 
the south in 1859 to take the position which was held in 1847 
by the abolitionists and free-soilers, and from which they had 
been driven? Suppose a slave code were attainable; would it 
be worth a pinch of snuff when it had to be executed by the 
courts and juries of a territory whose refusal to pass a code 
had rendered congressional action necessary? 

Yet if the south did not adopt this theory of congressional 
legislation, it was thrown back upon Douglas' popular sover- 
eignty. Some men could accept neither theory, and were inclined 
to sigh for the good old days of the Missouri compromise. Un- 
constitutional in a strict legal sense, as it was to them, the Mis- 
souri compromise principle seemed the only possible solution 
of the difficulty. Such speculations led to the query whether 
it was possible to find any constitutional ground upon which 
the south could stand firmly, whether there were not great 
equities in the constitution — broad, strong, natural rights — 



Vol. viii, Nos. 1-2 TJiat Aggressive Slavocracy 73 

which southern statesmen could maintain, whether a policy could 
be found which would be free from that idle and mischievous 
spirit of legal metaphysics which had so long passed for pro- 
found political thought. 80 

Others were not so despondent and denied the necessity of 
a congressional code because, they said, the general laws were 
already sufficient to protect southern property in the territories 
and to make impossible "unfriendly legislation." Still others 
declared that a just construction of nonintervention meant no 
more than that congress should neither establish nor abolish 
slavery in the territories, but did not preclude congressional 
interference to counteract unfriendly territorial legislation. 
This interference might not be necessary, but it should be exer- 
cised whenever the territorial legislature attempted to discrimi- 
nate against slave property by an omission to pass laws for its 
protection, or by hostile legislation. Nonintervention, it was 
maintained, was to be denounced as a fallacy if it denied the 
power of congress to protect property. There was a vast dif- 
ference between the power to create or destroy by law and the 
power to protect rights legally existing under a fundamental 
law. In fact, these men declared that it was the solemn duty 
of congress to see that nothing was done, either by its own acts 
or by the acts of its agent — the territorial legislature, to which 
it might grant local legislative powers — that would destroy 
any right to which any citizen was entitled under the consti- 
tution. 81 

During 1858 there was again a movement in the south among 
the opposition elements to form a conservative, national, union 
party. They belittled the strength of the aggressive antislavery 
men in the north, and hoped to rally the conservatives in both 
sections in a conspiracy of silence, content to let slavery rest 
in status quo. The John Brown affair at Harper's Ferry, how- 
ever, in October of 1859, did much to prove such a movement 
fruitless and to revive the sectional feeling in a more intensified 
form. 

The whole story of the ante-bellum period is filled with most 

so Hammond from J. J. Seibels, July 30, 1859, from W. H. Trescott, August 9, 
1859, from J. L. Orr, September 17, 1859, Hammond papers. 

8i Boucher, ' ' South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession, ' ' in Washing- 
ton university studies, Humanistic series, 6:126-127. 



74 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v - H - R - 

unfortunate developments. Just when the conservatives in the 
south were devoting their utmost endeavors to guard against 
rash action and the rule of passion, and to insure calm judgment, 
the Harper's Ferry insurrection gave another forceful argu- 
ment to the radical hotspurs. Many southerners who had not 
been inclined to pay much attention to the fire-eaters were now 
soon ready to believe that the people of the north would re- 
joice to see the whole south wrapped in the flames of servile 
insurrection. One report of the affair brought it straight home : 
among the maps found in the conspirator's possession were 
some of southern states marked with circles and crosses, which 
seemed to show that the lives and property of these communities 
had been doomed by the plotters. Henceforth a more careful 
watch must be maintained to detect agents tampering with the 
slaves. 82 

Although John Brown went his solitary way in Kansas, and 
did not have the support or countenance of the majority of the 
free-state men there, how could the south know or believe this? 
The same may be said of his operations in Virginia. Probably 
less than a hundred people knew beforehand anything about the 
enterprise at Harper's Ferry, and less than a dozen of these 
rendered aid and encouragement. But the affair, because it 
came on the eve of the final election before the war, sharpened 
the issue and had considerable influence. It played into the 
hands of extremists in both sections. On one side, Brown was 
soon made a martyr and a hero; on the other, his acts were 
accepted as a demonstration of northern malignity and hatred, 
the fitting expression of which was seen in the incitement of 
slaves to massacre their masters. John Brown became to south- 
erners the personification of northern opposition. We know to- 
day that he was an extremist, perhaps, as some have said, unbal- 
anced mentally, certainly not possessed of robust common sense. 
But by the time of his rise to notoriety, many in the south could 
no longer distinguish between John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, 
even though we know that they were as far apart as the poles. 
Certain it is that a man who is said to have admired Nat Turner, 
the leader of the servile insurrection in Virginia, as much as 
he did George Washington, was a most dangerous citizen at 

82 Boucher, ' ' South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession, ' ' in Washington 
university studies, Humanistic series, 6: 130. 



Vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 75 

such a time. Abolitionists of every class had said much about 
war and about servile insurrection. By the later eighteen-fifties 
the south realized what was in the mind of John Brown; he 
believed that so high was the tension on the slavery question 
throughout the country that revolution, if inaugurated at any 
point, would sweep the land and liberate the slaves ; he believed 
that he was himself the divinely chosen agent to let loose the 
forces of freedom. How could the south help but conclude that 
if war was to be forced, with the preliminary and accompanying 
horrors of servile insurrection and race war, the south had 
better try to prevent it by seceding, or at least have war come 
without these preliminary and accompanying horrors? 

It requires but little imagination to picture the reaction in 
the south when the news came that when Emerson referred to 
John Brown as "that new saint . . . who . . . will 
make the gallows glorious like the cross," he was cheered with 
enthusiasm by an immense audience in Boston; and there were 
many other testimonials of the temper of the north. 

During 1859 and 1860 the coming presidential election pre- 
sented to the south grave questions of policy : what part should 
the section take in that election? just what statement of prin- 
ciple and what candidate should it sponsor? in case of certain 
election results what course should be pursued? Down to the 
very eve of the election there was no general agreement on an 
answer to any of these questions. The nearest there was to 
a general consensus of opinion seemed to be simply that a black 
republican victory would mean an end of all probability of safe- 
ty for the south in the union, unless the section could really be 
aroused to positive united action as never before and could 
present as an ultimatum a demand for constitutional amend- 
ments which would without question guarantee to the southern 
states safety within their own boundaries. 

When the South Carolina legislature in December, 1859, could 
not agree on a policy for the state in the immediate future, the 
members, in the face of this embarrassment, agreed on a com- 
promise declaration that the southern states should appoint 
delegates at once to arrange a plan of united action. In a short 
time, however, it was seen that the attempt to promote a south- 
ern congress was a failure, for it was soon demonstrated by 



76 Chauncey S. Boucher M - v. h. e. 

action in other states that there was no likelihood that more 
than one or two states could be interested in the congress, so 
absorbed were they all in the game of president-making. Even 
in the case of Virginia, where a special messenger was sent 
to express sympathy with the state in the John Brown affair and 
to invite it to lead in securing a southern conference, the attempt 
failed. 83 

Clearly there was only one political party — the democratic 
party — with which the south could possibly cooperate, but there 
was serious disagreement as to whether the south should be 
represented even in that party's nominating convention. After 
a spirited contest — especially so in South Carolina — it was 
agreed in all the states to send representatives. Here, however, 
agreement ended. As to the platform statement to be demanded 
on the territorial question there was serious disagreement : some 
were for dropping the whole question, or for accepting any 
statement upon it, because it was a mere abstraction; others 
were willing to accept popular sovereignty, because that prin- 
ciple would give the south the opportunity to carry slavery 
wherever climate, soil, methods of production, and population 
would permit; others, including a majority of the southern dele- 
gates at the Charleston convention, insisted upon noninterven- 
tion so interpreted as to preclude hostile legislation by a terri- 
torial legislature and to allow for prospective legislation by con- 
gress if necessary. As to a safe candidate, worthy of southern 
support, there was again serious disagreement. To many, Doug- 
las was entirely satisfactory, because they regarded him as a 
noble and gallant man, offering to the south all that the section 
could in reason expect. Others, however, regarded him as a 
black-hearted villain of the deepest dye, whose theories were 
based not on sound principles but on insidious and dangerous 
sophistries. 

When disagreement over the platform was brought to a head 
in the national democratic convention at Charleston, and the 
delegations of eight southern states seceded, there seemed to be 
the prospect of united southern action. Once more, however, the 
agreement was only on the negative policy of withdrawing ; what 
positive policy should follow was not easily determined. The 

83 Boucher, ' ' South Carolina and the south on the eve of secession, ' ' in Wash- 
ington university studies, Humanistic series, 6:134. 



Vol vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slav ocracy 77 

immediate prospect for the south did not seem to be unity of 
action, for evidence was painfully clear in nearly every state 
that there was to be a scramble for the spoils of office available 
either in the Richmond or the Baltimore convention — the con- 
vention of the seceders and the adjourned session of what was 
left of the regular convention. By no means was it clear that 
the disruption of the Charleston convention would bring about 
a dissolution of the union. 

Many prominent southerners, including nineteen members of 
congress, thought that a grave mistake had been made by the 
seceders, and were for going back into the regular convention 
at Baltimore. Others were for sending delegates to the con- 
vention called by the seceders to meet at Richmond, hoping 
that this convention would be able to force the Baltimore con- 
vention to adopt the territorial principle demanded by the 
seceders, and thus unite the democratic party again, north 
and south. Still others, a minority in the south, led by the fire- 
eating and ' ' chivalry ' ' radicals, wanted the Richmond convention 
to take independent action and the southern democrats to re- 
main separate and independent from any alliances whatsoever 
with the north, hoping that secession would be the ultimate result 
of such action, following the election. This group ultimately 
had their way in regard to splitting the democratic party, and 
two democratic candidates, representing two distinct parties, 
were placed in nomination. As August came, and it was seen 
that the democratic party was irreparably split, the inevitable 
result of the election became evident — Lincoln, the black repub- 
lican candidate, would be the next president. 

When election time came the conservative vote in the south 
was surprisingly large. Even though a vote for Bell, the candi- 
date of still another party, the constitutional union party, indi- 
cated a willingness to play the role of the ostrich, his popular 
vote was surprisingly near that for Breckinridge. In the fifteen 
slave states the electoral vote was 9 for Douglas, 72 for Breck- 
inridge, 39 for Bell. But this does not at all reflect the charac- 
ter of the popular vote. Lincoln polled 26,430, Douglas 163,525, 
Bell 515,973, and Breckinridge 571,051. If we accept the vote 
for Breckinridge as indicating the strength of those who were 
united on an aggressive policy, even to the point of secession, 
they are found to have constituted only about 45 per cent of the 



78 Chauncey S. Boucher m.v.h.r. 

people of the south. In the eleven states which ultimately con- 
stituted the confederacy, the popular vote was : Lincoln, 1,929 ; 
Douglas, 72,084 — 8.4 per cent; Breckinridge, 436,772 — 51 per 
cent ; Bell, 345,919 — 40 per cent. 

Secession was not a clear-cut issue in the election in the south. 
Indeed, in the remaining weeks of the year following the elec- 
tion, it was not at all clear that there would be a concerted move 
for secession in a majority of even the states of the lower south. 
There was abundant evidence of a strong union feeling, which 
some said was stronger than at any time in a decade, and it was 
apparently not at all unlikely that resistance would be delayed 
and offers of concession or compromise be seriously considered. 
In South Carolina alone there was a clear-cut determination 
to act — to secede; but whether its action would strengthen 
and rally support for, or completely unnerve and deplete the 
ranks of, the resistance elements in the rest of the south, few 
in South Carolina pretended to know. Nevertheless, the people 
of that state went wild with excitement ; liberty poles were erect- 
ed, volunteer companies drilled, and the palmetto flag was 
greeted with cheers for the new republic. Men who, when the 
legislature was convened at election time, had urged caution, 
unless indications were clear that the other southern states were 
ready to go out and only wanted a leader, now said that South 
Carolina must secede at once. The state convention, on Decem- 
ber 20, when it passed the ordinance of secession, merely gave 
official expression to what had been determined by the people 
a month before. Thoroughly wearied by the long period of 
threatening and blustering, with nerves kept a-tingle for years 
by the continual wrangling with the north and among themselves, 
the people of this state at last had reached the point where 
something, anything, to relieve the tension was welcome. Though 
by no means unanimously convinced that they were pursuing 
the course which was certain to bring a decided change for the 
better, from all standpoints, the people rejoiced in definite ac- 
tion. Few pretended to see clearly what the results would be. 

As some people had predicted, the action of South Carolina 
proved all that was needed to give the advantage to the resist- 
ance men in six of the other states which soon followed the 
example set by the palmetto state. In each of these states, 



vol. vin, Nos. 1-2 That Aggressive Slavocracy 79 

once the decision was made, the union men declared that they 
would abide by it and act accordingly. For a few weeks, while 
"the confederate states of America" were being organized at 
Montgomery, while the constitution was being framed and officers 
were being selected, there was really for the first time unity 
of purpose and action. But this period proved all too brief 
for the sake of the cause which was destined in a few years to 
become "the lost cause." Within a short time after the new 
government was launched there came disagreements, both per- 
sonal and on policy; these ripened into bitter personal and 
factional feuds, and all too soon the body politic which should 
have been a perfect unit, in order to have any hope of success, 
was torn and distracted by bickerings and jealousies and honest 
disagreements on fundamental issues of policy. 84 

Chauncey S. Boucher 
University of Texas 

Austin 

s* Letters by Toombs, Stephens, Cobb, Joseph E. Brown, and others, 1859-1860, 
in Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb; Alexander H. Stephens to 
Robert Collins and others, May 9, 1860, in Stephens, Constitutional view of the 
war between the states (Philadelphia, 1870), 2:677-684. 



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